Dedicated to:

The two of you, who single-handedly change what star-crossed means when it comes to true love.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PROPER NOUNS

ahstrux nohtrum (n.)

Private guard with license to kill who is granted his or her position by the King.

ahvenge (v.)

Act of mortal retribution, carried out typically by a male loved one.

Black Dagger Brotherhood (pr. n.)

Highly trained vampire warriors who protect their species against the Lessening Society. As a result of selective breeding within the race, Brothers possess immense physical and mental strength, as well as rapid healing capabilities. They are not siblings for the most part, and are inducted into the Brotherhood upon nomination by the Brothers. Aggressive, self-reliant, and secretive by nature, they are the subjects of legend and objects of reverence within the vampire world. They may be killed only by the most serious of wounds, e.g., a gunshot or stab to the heart, etc.

blood slave (n.)

Male or female vampire who has been subjugated to serve the blood needs of another. The practice of keeping blood slaves has been outlawed.

the Chosen (pr. n.)

Female vampires who had been bred to serve the Scribe Virgin. In the past, they were spiritually rather than temporally focused, but that changed with the ascendance of the final Primale, who freed them from the Sanctuary. With the Scribe Virgin removing herself from her role, they are completely autonomous and learning to live on earth. They do continue to meet the blood needs of unmated members of the Brotherhood, as well as Brothers who cannot feed from their shellans or injured fighters.

chrih (n.)

Symbol of honorable death in the Old Language.

cohntehst (n.)

Conflict between two males competing for the right to be a female’s mate.

Dhunhd (pr. n.)

Hell.

doggen (n.)

Member of the servant class within the vampire world. Doggen have old, conservative traditions about service to their superiors, following a formal code of dress and behavior. They are able to go out during the day, but they age relatively quickly. Life expectancy is approximately five hundred years.

ehros (n.)

A Chosen trained in the matter of sexual arts.

exhile dhoble (n.)

The evil or cursed twin, the one born second.

the Fade (pr. n.)

Non-temporal realm where the dead reunite with their loved ones and pass eternity.

First Family (pr. n.)

The King and Queen of the vampires, and any children they may have.

ghardian (n.)

Custodian of an individual. There are varying degrees of ghardians, with the most powerful being that of a sehcluded female.

glymera (n.)

The social core of the aristocracy, roughly equivalent to Regency England’s ton.

hellren (n.)

Male vampire who has been mated to a female. Males may take more than one female as mate.

hyslop (n. or v.)

Term referring to a lapse in judgment, typically resulting in the compromise of the mechanical operations of a vehicle or otherwise motorized conveyance of some kind. For example, leaving one’s keys in one’s car as it is parked outside the family home overnight, whereupon said vehicle is stolen.

leahdyre (n.)

A person of power and influence.

leelan (adj. or n.)

A term of endearment loosely translated as “dearest one.”

Lessening Society (pr. n.)

Order of slayers convened by the Omega for the purpose of eradicating the vampire species.

lesser (n.)

De-souled human who targets vampires for extermination as a member of the Lessening Society. Lessers must be stabbed through the chest in order to be killed; otherwise they are ageless. They do not eat or drink and are impotent. Over time, their hair, skin, and irises lose pigmentation until they are blond, blushless, and pale eyed. They smell like baby powder. Now inducted into the society by the Omega’s son, they no longer keep jars for their hearts, as they did in the past. Women now may be inducted.

lewlhen (n.)

Gift.

lheage (n.)

A term of respect used by a sexual submissive to refer to their dominant.

Lhenihan (pr. n.)

A mythic beast renowned for its sexual prowess. In modern slang, refers to a male of preternatural size and sexual stamina.

lys (n.)

Torture tool used to remove the eyes.

mahmen (n.)

Mother. Used both as an identifier and a term of affection.

mhis (n.)

The masking of a given physical environment; the creation of a field of illusion.

nalla (n., f.) or nallum (n., m.)

Beloved.

needing period (n.)

Female vampire’s time of fertility, generally lasting for two days and accompanied by intense sexual cravings. Occurs approximately five years after a female’s transition and then once a decade thereafter. All males respond to some degree if they are around a female in her need. It can be a dangerous time, with conflicts and fights breaking out between competing males, particularly if the female is not mated.

newling (n.)

A virgin.

the Omega (pr. n.)

Malevolent, mystical figure who targeted the vampires for extinction out of resentment directed toward the Scribe Virgin. Existed in a non-temporal realm and had extensive powers, though not the power of creation. Exterminated by the Brotherhood, and succeeded by his son, Lash.

phearsom (adj.)

Term referring to the potency of a male’s sexual organs. Literal translation something close to “worthy of entering a female.”

Princeps (pr. n.)

Highest level of the vampire aristocracy, second only to members of the First Family or the Scribe Virgin’s Chosen. Must be born to the title; it may not be conferred.

pyrocant (n.)

Refers to a critical weakness in an individual. The weakness can be internal, such as an addiction, or external, such as a lover.

rahlman (n.)

Savior.

rythe (n.)

Ritual manner of asserting honor granted by one who has offended another. If accepted, the offended chooses a weapon and strikes the offender, who presents him- or herself without defenses.

the Scribe Virgin (pr. n.)

Mystical force who previously was counselor to the King as well as the keeper of vampire archives and the dispenser of privileges. Existed in a non-temporal realm and had extensive powers, but stepped down and gave her station to the fallen angel Lassiter. Was capable of a single act of creation, which she expended to bring the vampires into existence.

sehclusion (n.)

Status conferred by the King upon a female of the aristocracy as a result of a petition by the female’s family. Places the female under the sole direction of her ghardian, typically the eldest male in her household. Her ghardian then has the legal right to determine all manner of her life, restricting at will any and all interactions she has with the world.

shellan (n.)

Female vampire who has been mated to a male. Females generally do not take more than one mate due to the highly territorial nature of bonded males.

symphath (n.)

Subspecies within the vampire race characterized by the ability and desire to manipulate emotions in others (for the purposes of an energy exchange), among other traits. Historically, they have been discriminated against and, during certain eras, hunted by vampires.

talhman (n.)

The evil side of an individual. A dark stain on the soul that requires expression if it is not properly expunged.

the Tomb (pr. n.)

Sacred vault of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Used as a ceremonial site and, previously, the storage facility for the jars of lessers. Ceremonies performed there include inductions, funerals, and disciplinary actions against Brothers. No one may enter except for members of the Brotherhood, the Scribe Virgin’s successor, or candidates for induction.

trahyner (n.)

Word used between males of mutual respect and affection. Translated loosely as “beloved friend.”

transition (n.)

Critical moment in a vampire’s life when he or she transforms into an adult. Thereafter, he or she must drink the blood of the opposite sex to survive and is unable to withstand sunlight. Occurs generally in the mid-twenties. Some vampires do not survive their transitions, males in particular. Prior to their transitions, vampires are physically weak, sexually unaware and unresponsive, and unable to dematerialize.

vampire (n.)

Member of a species separate from that of Homo sapiens. Vampires must drink the blood of the opposite sex to survive. Human blood will keep them alive, though the strength does not last long. Following their transitions, which occur in their mid-twenties, they are unable to go out into sunlight and must feed from the vein regularly. Vampires cannot “convert” humans through a bite or transfer of blood, though they are in rare cases able to breed with the other species. Vampires can dematerialize at will, though they must be able to calm themselves and concentrate to do so and may not carry anything heavy with them. They are able to strip the memories of humans, provided such memories are short-term. Some vampires are able to read minds. Life expectancy is upward of a thousand years, or in some cases, even longer.

wahlker (n.)

An individual who has died and returned to the living from the Fade. They are accorded great respect and are revered for their travails.

whard (n.)

Equivalent of a godfather or godmother to an individual.

PROLOGUE

Six months ago…

Caldwell, New York

Rhysallhan, blooded son of Chritophe the Younger, had never committed murder before.

Picking up a silver candlestick off the sideboard, he blew out the lit wick on a gasp. Then he removed the stem of lily-scented beeswax and regarded the object that was one of many in the formal dining room. Fashioned as a Corinthian column, the holder had an ornate, weighted bottom that was sealed on the underside with aged green felt and a top that was articulated with the delicate curls and flourishes typical of high Greco-Roman architecture.

Gripping the sterling stalk at the top, he turned it upside down and tested the weapon in his hand. Felt the weight of the base as he struck his own palm. Watched the arc it made as he swung his arm from over his shoulder to down at his hip.

He had never killed anybody before, and as a pretrans, he didn’t have much physical strength to bring to the act.

The element of surprise was going to have to work with him.

As thunder rolled overhead and rain lashed at the old-fashioned windows, he walked down the mahogany table that was long as a landing strip, glossy as a still pond. Arriving at the ornate archway in the rear, he paused and listened through the storm’s rage to the distant piano music. As his hold bloomed with sweat, he was forced to wipe his hand on the seat of his pressed trousers, and when that wasn’t enough, he had to take the pocket square from the breast of his fitted jacket to wipe the sterling silver off.

Ah, a better grip now. Too bad that wasn’t going to last.

I am not ready, he thought.

But if he was going to commit this murder, it had to be now when the doggen were out running errands and his sister had taken the chauffeured car for the evening. Also, assuming he was successful, there was going to be cleanup, and he needed to account for that.

As a tremendous gust of wind battered the mansion, the lights flickered, causing shadows to seethe all around like evil coconspirators. There was no hiccup in the piano music, no dropped notes, that which had been learned long ago now played by heart.

He tested out the downward strike a couple more times.

No more procrastinating. It had taken him a month, but he had everything all arranged, had gotten the correct legal documentation set up, had even taken the wet vac out of the doggen’s downstairs broom closet. For that cleanup.

He had watched medical documentaries to prepare: Blood loss could be extensive. The face and scalp were highly vascularized.

Slipping his feet out of his loafers, he started silently for the source of the music. And had to stop. His silk socks made no noise on the marble floor, but the lack of traction was going to be a problem. Doubling back, he put his shoes on again and proceeded on his tiptoes, crossing the foyer like something out of a cheesy old movie.

His life had boiled down to a round of Clue.

The disaffected son, with the candlestick, in the conservatory…

Another bracing whoosh of wind caused a concert of creaks and groans to harmonize with the piano, and the lights cut out abruptly. As he sucked in his breath, he slapped his free hand over his mouth and nose. The piano music continued, however. And then the illumination sputtered back on.

The ornate frosted doors were open, and his eyes locked on the male whose back was to the entry.

Chritophe the Younger—also the firstborn son of his generation—was seated at the Steinway, facing into the glass cavern of floral flares and static marble statues. Dressed in a pale gray version of the wool suit Rhysallhan himself wore, the male was bent over the ivory keys, his torso swaying as his elbows extended and retracted, his long, elegant fingers flowing this way and that, his precisely combed head bobbing in time to the plodding beat. A serviceable player rather than an inspired one, the music produced was good enough to carry a pedestrian ear, the notes executed adequately, the tempo on the slow side due to a lack of dexterity. Ultimately, he was just a hobbyist, but certainly far, far superior to those at the “Chopsticks” level.

Hatred coiled like a beast in Rhysallhan’s soul.

Stepping over the threshold, he tightened his hold on the candlestick’s head, and the notes coming out of the Steinway seemed very, very loud, even though the delicate volume had not changed. The piece was an inappropriate soundtrack for what was about to happen. Mozart’s Sonata No. 16 in C Major, Andante? So chippy and cheerful, something that should be piped into an elevator. Better a work from Prokofiev. Perhaps op. 75, no. 6, Montagues and Capulets (Dance of the Knights).

Or fucking Wagner.

Tunnel vision set in as Rhysallhan prowled soundlessly across the slate tiles, all the while measuring the back of his sire’s skull. When a bloom of sweat gathered under his arms, and a sense of no-return cloaked him in a dissociative panic, he glanced out to the windows. The storm kicked out another lick of lightning—

He froze.

Between the palm fronds, his reflection was obvious as a TV screen, and he did not recognize the pretrans who stared back at him. Warped into ugly slices by the leaded frames of the panes, he was a monster dressed in Brooks Brothers, the candlestick as absurd as he was, the two of them drafted into roles that were not part of their design or normal function.

Mouth dry. Sweat across his pathetic chest. Legs quivering.

Only the reality that they were out of time, and not just for this grim duty, got him moving once more, a sloppy stalker, quaking in his loafers.

As he sized up the crown of his father’s head, the cowlick there was a detail he had never noticed before, the trimmed dark hairs growing in an orderly spin. The pattern reminded him of what water looked like as it funneled down a drain, and didn’t the little bald circle in the center give him something to aim for.

It would be better to strike the frontal lobe, but he wasn’t going to be able to do this head on.

Har. Har.

Besides, even though his father was an aristocrat with no training in physical defense, there was no question who was going to win in any struggle. Not Rhysallhan.

Now, he halted. Three feet behind the piano. The bench. The male who had sired him and his sister.

He was breathing too hard as he lifted the heavy sterling column over his shoulder. His palm was so very wet, and he added another grip to keep control. Oh, fuck. That changed the angle. He needed to put things directly over his own head now, otherwise he was going to risk the strike coming down at the wrong—

“Have you come to apologize, then.”

Rhysallhan fumbled the candlestick, and as it tripped out of his grip, his whole body went into a scramble to keep the thing from hitting the floor. Meanwhile, his father still didn’t miss a single note. The Mozart was as smooth as the male’s diction, as the lapels of his jacket, as the comb of that hair—

The music snuffed into silence and his father swung around on the piano bench.

Rhysallhan snatched the candlestick out of sight, tucking it at the small of his back.

“Well?” Chritophe prompted tersely.

The male’s posture was perfect, the spine ramrod straight in that tailored gray suit, the narrow shoulders back as if there were a hanger built inside of the jacket. The expression on the aristocratic face was disdain projected through a bone structure of fine breeding and privilege—which was to say, the loft of that one brow was the glymera equivalent of a screaming load of curses.

“I’m waiting.” Manicured fingers flared into a stretch and then toyed with the precisely folded pocket square at his left breast. “If you’re just going to stand there, I shall go back to my playing. And you may be excused.”

As if Rhysallhan were a nuisance child.

“I… I-I…”

The brows lowered in judgment. “You know, Rhysallhan, this social awkwardness of yours has never been amusing.”

“It’s n-not for your entert-tainment.”

“How fortunate. I have always found your stammering quite tedious.”

From out of nowhere, Rhysallhan noted a strange gathering noise in the distance, the roar making him think of a train approaching or perhaps a plane dive-bombing the mansion. As the racket redoubled, the blaring rush became so loud that he glanced over his shoulder in case he was about to be run over by an Amtrak anything.

No, it was inside his head.

As he twisted back around, his father’s eyes fixated at a lower angle. “What are you doing with that candlestick?”

Rhysallhan looked down at what was in his hand. Like so much of the family’s silver collection, the weapon he had chosen was more than a century old, and purchased from Tiffany & Co. here in the New World. His bloodline had been considered nouveau riche back then, beneath the contempt of the true aristocracy. After the raids, though, when so many of the glymera had been slaughtered, standards had lowered. Now even their family tree was considered august and venerable.

“I asked you a question,” his sire snapped. “What are you doing with the candlestick.”

Rhysallhan cleared his throat. “I’m going to kill you with it.”

When he glanced back up, his father was, for once, speechless. For an instant. “I beg your pardon.”

As if the male’s choice of tie had been insulted—

Tennis. Years and years of tennis instruction came back and animated Rhysallhan. With a shocking coordination, he two-handed the candlestick, planted his left foot, and cranked back into a forehand. The swing was level and surprisingly coordinated, the aim right at the side of his sire’s head.

Too bad he’d always sucked at racket sports.

He came up way short, just barely managing to clip his sire’s aristocratic nose. The crack! suggested he’d managed to break something of it, though, and then the polished sterling slipped out of his grip, his father’s immediate gasp-and-cover drowned out by the clattering across the stone floor.

With thunder echoing his pounding feet, Rhysallhan raced after his weapon as his father jumped up, the piano bench flipping off its stick legs.

“Have you lost your mind!”

The ringing alarm came back. This was bad. This was so bad.

There was only one thing worse than patricide.

Failing at it.

Someone was yelling. Not him, and he wasn’t about to decipher the decibels. The second his hand reconnected with the candlestick, he had a fresh blast of nausea at the blood on the corner of the base, but also a renewed focus. He spun around.

Both his sire’s brows were up high into that forehead, and blood was seeping out from the hands he’d clasped around his nose. Those eyes, always so haughty and bored, were wide and more offended than angry or scared.

“—dare you! You ungrateful—”

“I-I know who you have been t-talking to,” Rhysallhan forced out as the lights failed once again and came back on with a strobing. “I kn-know what you have done.”

His father went perfectly still such that the only thing animated upon him was the blood that dripped onto his club tie, and his pressed, starched white shirt.

“You know nothing.”

“I’m not l-letting you do this to Carmen. You h-have h-hurt her enough… al-r-ready.”

“Who are you to question me!” His father dropped his hands and blood poured down the front of him. “I am the head of this family—”

A raging scream unlike anything that had ever come out of Rhysallhan’s mouth erupted into the conservatory, overpowering even the thunderstorm. With a herky-jerk jump, he charged. He had no idea where the candlestick was, so it was shocking to see the thing arcing out to the side again: Both his palms were somehow back on the shaft, right at the top so that the heavier base swung forward for a second time.

His aim was just as bad as his first swing, the impact catching his father’s upper arm because the male jumped back out of range.

The piano bench became his accomplice. As lightning sent everything into a flash-photography sequence, his father took a twisting pivot for the open doorway, and got tangled in the toppled seat, his slick-soled velvet slippers going out from under him, his balance lurching backwards—

He hit the keyboard with the back of his head, making an ugly one-note that was loud enough to fill the whole house. Then he fell lifeless to the stone floor.

The discordant explosion from the Steinway faded in the aftermath.

There was blood on the ivories. And a puddle forming beneath his sire’s skull.

Rhysallhan panted in and out, the breath whistling through his front teeth. For a split second, all he could see was that red smudge on the white. Then he inspected the sterling in his hand. So much more there, seeping into the articulated detail around the base, dripping off to fall to the floor.

As the candlestick started to slip out of his hand, he knew he was going to pass out—

His sire flipped himself over onto his stomach with all the grace of a fall wasp on a windowsill. The wound on the back of his head was gruesome, the white of the bone a shocking contrast to the red gash in the scalp. As Rhysallhan started to dry-heave, the injured male at his feet fanned his hand on the slate and pulled himself forward with a groan. Then he threw out his other arm.

One of Chritophe’s slippers was lost as he inched his way to the escape, to the threshold Rhysallhan had crossed.

All he could do was stare down in horror.

There was so much blood on the slate floor now. A trail of it, smudging an ugly maroon stain over the gray stone. And then there was the copper scent, spearing into his sinuses.

His brain, the only asset he’d ever had to his own name, froze up on him. Gone was all the intelligence he navigated his family with, the cognition that had made all this possible. He waited for his mind to reboot, like a computer that had been sent into a restart.

Nothing happened. He was utterly blank.

With the storm continuing to rage, his head wrenched to the side, and he measured the distance to the archway that led into the house proper.

He needed to finish the job, but God, when he’d played this out in his mind, it had been a one-and-done. Neat and tidy, and then he dragged the body out onto the lawn behind the study where the heavy velvet drapes were always pulled. He was supposed to calmly return here with a bucket and that wet vac, clean what there was on the floor—and now the piano keys—and double-check nothing was out of order.

Then the doggen would return first, and he would tell them he needed a special Last Meal prepared. His sister would come back next and she would be so excited with all she had purchased. When the pair of them sat down at the dining room table together, he would lay out the lies about him and their father having to return to the Old Country. He’d tell her that they had been urgently called away to recapture some legacy land before humans developed it, and that their sire had already departed on a private plane. And then the happy news. Chritophe had had a change of heart and reconsidered her desired mating, and he’d left the appropriate permissions to proceed in place.

Carmen would be surprised, but thrilled, and she would be so swept up in excitement, she wouldn’t question anything.

Rhysallhan would depart the next night, after he covered up the burn mark on the lawn, after he was sure his sister was settled. He’d disappear from this cursed house forever and finish the second half of all this, alone in his grim knowledge of what had truly transpired.

All neat and tidy. Not like… this.

With a feeling of utter disassociation, he retightened both hands once again, and stepped in behind his sire.

Planting one foot on either side of the trim torso, he scrummed down into his thighs, and lifted the candlestick straight over his head.

He aimed for the wound.

And this time, he hit the bull’s-eye. He brought the heavy silver down right where he needed it to go.

At the cracking impact, his sire’s arms jerked up and seemed to hang at the apex of their wingspan. When gravity grabbed the limbs back, the palms slapped against the stone. And then there was no more forward motion, just twitches of the torso as the breathing became only a series of juicy, gasping inhales.

He waited for them to stop. They didn’t.

Arching forward to check the head, he recoiled. His father’s eyes were open and unblinking. The nose was completely out of place, the blood flowing out of it like a faucet, the mouth below open and gaping.

And yet the male refused to stop breathing.

As more lightning flashed, Rhysallhan drew back the candlestick one last time—

“Brother?” came the call from the foyer. “I’m home! It’s simply too ghastly to be out tonight.”

In horror, he looked down as their sire seemed to rouse at the sound of Carmen’s voice.

“Rhysallhan? Wherever are you?”

CHAPTER ONE

Present Day

Salvatore’s Restaurant

Outside of Little Italy, Caldwell

She wants the tossed salad, no dressing, the grilled vegetables, and she can have the broiled chicken. No sauce.”

Princess Dennesha, blooded daughter of Queen Catra, heir to the throne of the Shadows in the Territory of the s’Hisbe, beloved blooded daughter of His Highness the Prince Consort iAm, looked away from the woman who’d refused to meet her eyes since the moment the couple had been seated in the section Denne was covering. The man on the other side of the two-top was fiftyish and thick-necked to the point of busting out the open collar of his shirt. With the shoulders of a former football player, the girth of a current drinker, and the orbital brow of a Neanderthal, it was clear he put the “thug” in “aspirational asshole.” Suit was expensive, watch was an AP Royal Oak, and she hadn’t noticed the shoes, but she was betting they had logos on them.

Gucci. LV. Or Ferragamo.

“I’ll have the antipasto and the lasagna al forno,” he announced as he ran a meaty paw over his slick-backed hair. “You can bring me another old-fashioned with the bread. T’anks, sweetheart.”

The smile that was sent her way was so dismissive, the flick of the man’s chubby hands was unnecessary.

Denne glanced back at the woman. She was so much younger than him and had the darting eyes and tense posture of someone who dodged a lot of slaps. Dressed in a blue sheath that came down to her mid-thigh on the bottom and nearly her belly button on the top, she had dark skin and a blond weave that fell to her waist. Her shoes were high, strappy, and about as practical for the winter weather as a pair of toothpicks.

“Hello?” the guy demanded as he shot over a glare. “You forget your brain or sumthn?”

“No, I didn’t,” Denne murmured.

Pulling a pivot, she walked it for the kitchen’s flap doors. The restaurant was running at seventy-five percent capacity, pretty typical for a weeknight at seven p.m. Most of the folks were regulars, older couples eating the same thing and business types entertaining clients, but there were a few girls’-nights-out happening, clutches of moms sharing a nice meal and a glass of wine. As for the asshole, she didn’t recognize him specifically, but she’d certainly seen versions of the suit-and-shiny-shoes gangster shit before. Of course, if he’d been a real high roller, he would have been seated in one of the banquettes in the bar area. Instead, he’d been given a table in the middle of the tourists’ room.

So he hadn’t tipped the maître d’.

Sal’s was an Italian institution in Caldwell, with ties that went all the way back to the NYC La Cosa Nostra a hundred years ago in the 1950s. It was the kind of place where real mobsters still came for the food and wannabe tough guys just had to flex—and the latter did tend to bring that kind of too-thin, twitchy, younger woman with them, another thing they felt they owned.

The actual OGs only came with their associates.

Pushing her way into the kitchen, things were hopping, sous chefs sautéing at the stove, dessert staff pulling pastries out of the ovens, the dishwashers the only people loitering, because the first wave of dirties from the entrées hadn’t come to them yet.

“Marco, we got an anti-past, a lasagna, a roasted chicken with veg.” She kept a curse to herself. “No sauce. I’ll do the salad.”

“You got it, Denne.”

Head chef Marco Andrello was a full-bred Italian who rode the range like a maestro, even though he was only in his thirties. As humans didn’t live very long, she was glad for him and for Sal’s. He still had a good forty or fifty years of doing what he loved to do, and no one could argue that his passions were misplaced. He’d managed to get them a Michelin star, something that was unheard of for a place like this where the portion sizes were normal, the prices reasonable, and the history not of the snotty variety.

Swinging by the bread station, she nodded at the kid who was cutting fresh slants off the loaves. He handed her a basket, and she grabbed a butter plate.

“Thanks, Peter.”

She hipped out the other set of doors to the bar. Julianne was their tender, and the sixty-year-old grandmother of two was tough as they came. Nobody got away with nothing at her counter, as she liked to say.

“Another old-fashioned, please.”

“Sure thing, D.”

As a rocks glass was slammed down on the prep pad, Denne looked out through the archway. The fucker with the big-boy attitude was on his phone, his elbows planted on the table like tree trunks, his jacket riding up on his thick biceps and pooching at the shoulders. Across from him, that woman was like the place settings, perfectly arranged and gleaming in all her immobility.

Except for her eyes.

They continued to dart around, even as her head didn’t move and there was no blinking.

Humans are not your business, Denne told herself as she turned back to the bar. Never had been, never will be.

When his lordship’s old-fashioned was ready, she went back to the table. The guy didn’t look up as she swapped the full with the empty. Then again, he was busy screening profiles of other women, the swipe-rights going like the wind—

A stiletto stretched out from under the table, blocking Denne’s way.

Glancing down, the first thing that registered was a pattern of bruising on the thigh. The fan of discoloration was exposed as the short skirt rode up and it was clearly from a hard grip. And then the woman put her hand out in an unusual position with the thumb down on the palm and the other four fingers extended outward.

In a movement too deliberate to miss, those fingers curled in and re-extended. Curled in… and re-extended.

“Where’s the bread,” the guy demanded.

Shit, she thought as she looked at her empty left hand.

With a quick look over her shoulder, she saw the damn basket back on the bar. “I’ll get it right now.”

“Sir.”

“I’m sorry?”

His stare flipped up from his phone, and the cold calculation was like he already had a hand on the front of her throat and was squeezing. “Right away… sir. Put some respect on it, wouldya.”

Denne’s fangs tingled in the roof of her mouth. “I’ll be back with the bread.”

She could feel his aggression follow her as she returned to Julianne’s zip code, and the soundtrack in her head was a pounding beat to the tune of leave-it-leave-it-leave-it.

“I woulda brought it to you,” Julianne said as she hit the blender on a bunch of limes and liquor. More loudly, she tacked on, “But I’m makin’ four daiquiris. Who the hell orders frozen fruity drinks in January.”

“I dunno, I never drink them.”

The bartender hit an even higher gear with a stubby punch. “That’s ’cuz you got taste buds. Might as well suck on fabric softener.”

On the second trip back, the man had turned his chair to face out from the table and he was staring through his eyebrows like he expected Denne to insult his mother’s virtue—and was hoping she did so he could hit her. Also, with his knees spread wide, he was clearly implying he was packing a monster in his pants.

Denne put the bread down and turned away, because sometimes a brush-off was the best way to knee an asshole in the balls. And as a couple of other diners glanced up from their cabernet sauvignon and their carbonara, she was reminded that there were advantages to those rats without tails being everywhere. If she were alone with this guy? God knows what she would do to him.

Public places could save fucking lives, they really could.

“Leave it,” she said under her breath. “Denne, you leave this alone.”

Except maybe it was the fact that the woman’s skin was dark like her own. Or that fragile perch on the chair, like she was about to shatter. Or the fucking poser’s arrogance…

When she got back into the kitchen, she headed down the hall that led to her little office and the rear exit of the restaurant. Just inside her door, her parka was hanging off a hook that had been screwed into the concrete wall, and she grabbed her phone out of a pocket. Even though she had a feeling what the hand signal meant, she looked the thing up online.

“Goddamn it,” she muttered as she clicked her screen off.

She was shoving her cell back into the puffy jacket when the door in from the parking lot opened wide and one of the other servers hustled in along with a lot of cold and a swirl of snowflakes.

“Oh my God, thank you for covering!” The young man stomped his boots on the matting and started unwinding a red scarf from his neck. “Me and Nick are totally scrambling with the wedding coming up. I never knew it would be so exhausting—”

When the fast syllables dried up, she looked properly at her friend. Willie Newley was six feet twelve hundred inches tall, as his fiancé always said, thin as a soda straw, and dressed in the mandatory black server’s uniform. Ichabod Crane meets dopamine: He was always in a good mood, and he carried his optimism and cheerful vibe like a rainbow he intended to share a feel-great head cold.

The smile faded. “Girl. What’s going on.”

“Oh, nothing. S’all good—”

“Nuh-uh. Your face is scrunched up like when you have to close out receipts for the month.” He put his hands on his hips. “You have three hours to tell me. If you haven’t by the end of the shift, I’m calling Nick in on this.”

Denne laughed a little. “Okay, there is no reason to escalate that far this fast.”

“I should have known better than to put you on the floor.” He yanked the scarf off and started peeling his layers. “You don’t do well with people. At least you can stay in your sanctuary for the rest of the night now.”

“I’m keeping sixteen.”

“What are you talkin’ ’bout.” Willie waved away the comment. “Your computer is waiting. Those numbers can’t add up themselves.”

“I’m just going to finish things with that one.” She stepped out into the hall and put her hand up. “That’s it.”

Willie stared at her for a long moment, like he was an internal medicine specialist looking for a disease.

“Okay, you do you.” He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “And I owe you. But you’re still going to tell me what’s up.”

“We are totally even, actually.” She leaned into all of his bones as they started walking together. “You didn’t ask me to be in your wedding party. That’s priceless.”

“See, I do love you.”

They separated as he broke away to head for the locker room and she went out into the kitchen to the garde-manger. As she made up the woman’s plate of mesclun, one of the newer hires, Christia, was almost finished with the asshole’s antipasto.

Oh, if only she were in s’Hisbe, Denne thought. As a Shadow, she had a whole lexicon of “spices” she could have added to that plate.

Shadows were great cooks, after all. Particularly if they were preparing their enemies to be the protein source.

With the greens-no-dressing all set, she crossed her arms over her chest and eased back against the counter while Christia finished with the display of cured meats and marinated peppers and olives. All around, the kitchen was ordered chaos, kind of like her mind. Everything had its purpose, and there was a system governing it all, but total disintegration was just one hiccup away, one stalled decision, one misstep.

Like getting involved in that young woman’s three-hundred-pound, misogynistic problem.

“You want me to take them out?” Christia said.

The girl had started about six months ago, and she was a good worker. Always on time, no drama, working her way through SUNY Caldwell. It was hard to say whether she would be here for six months or become another Julianne, who was a lifer.

“No, I’ll do it.” Denne forced a casual smile. Which was a nice trick considering her fangs had fully dropped. “Thanks.”

Before she put everything on a tray, she snagged an empty ramekin and ladled out a serving of the red wine vinaigrette. Tilting the little crock-ware container on the edge of the salad plate, she snagged the antipasto, got the load up on her shoulder, and butt-first’d the flap doors. As she entered the dining room, the chatter of the customers was something she’d been hearing for the past decade, and there was a peacefulness to the white noise. She couldn’t say she loved Sal’s. That was her father, iAm. But she was used to it, and there was something to be said for the predictable.

Especially when she felt like she had no direction at all. Which was kind of a problem for someone with a crown in their future.

Back at the asshole’s table, she kicked out a stand and put the tray down. After serving the antipasto, she took the mesclun with the contraband vinaigrette and went to—

“What’s on that plate.”

Denne assumed a pleasant confusion. “Huh?”

The man picked up a fork and stabbed in her direction. “The dressing. I said no dressing for her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She made a show of picking up the ramekin. “I’ll just take it away—”

You know, the great thing about vinaigrette, unlike, say, Thousand Island, blue cheese, or ranch, was the shit had the viscosity of water. So as she tipped the container, the dressing splashed out. Right into the woman’s lap.

Oops.

CHAPTER TWO

Bathe Nightclub

Market Street, bet. Sixteenth & Seventeenth

Can I be honest with you, Al?”

Over the din of the bass, Allhan looked across the sunken seating area at a fellow vampire he had next to nothing in common with. Shuli, a.k.a. Arcshuli, son of Arcshuliae the Younger, was not wearing jeans and a hoodie, but a set of black silk pajamas with gold swirls and red accents as a pattern. And the male didn’t have a shaggy haircut that was a month or two into growing out, but a style that cast his silken brown hair off to the side like a Nike swoosh. And laundry detergent wasn’t his cologne. He was wearing some luxury brand’s scent, and whatever it was smelled like money.

Oh, and even though it was winter and there was snow falling, his shoes were velvet slippers bearing a monogram executed in gold thread.

Allhan’s ten little piggies, on the other hand, were shoved in a damp, cold pair of Converse high-tops.

“Um… yes?” he replied, in the deep voice he was still trying to get used to.

“You’re big as a fucking house.” Shuli put both manicured hands out. “I mean, not in the slappy, flappy fat boy kind of way. No, you’re just… huge. I mean, I know that’s how the transition works. Been through it myself years ago. But… this shit with you is impressive.”

Allhan glanced down at himself for two reasons. One, he was flushing with embarrassment. And two, he kind of agreed. Ever since he’d been through the change, about a week ago, he’d stared out of a different face, walked with a taller body, picked up things with so much strength that he felt like he could qualify as a backhoe.

Even his hair was different. Thicker. Smoother.

“And also now look at you, you’re hot,” the aristocrat continued, loud enough for the others to hear over the club music. “Of course, I don’t personally go that route, but if I did, you’d be worth the double take.”

When he just stared at the guy all dumbfounded, a brow arched at him and then the aristocrat stood up and hobbled over. With a mental wince, Allhan zipped up his hoodie a little higher and tried to remember how to have a polite conversation with someone.

Any conversation.

Shuli sat down, crossing his legs at the knees and bouncing his velvet slipper to the beat. As he tilted his head, the enormous diamond studs in his earlobes flashed bright enough to create floaters in Allhan’s vision.

“I’m sorry,” the guy said. “I didn’t mean to make it weird. I’m drunk, very stoned, and that tends to get me talking.”

“It’s okay. I kn-know it’s strange. I don’t recognize myself.”

And as he glanced around at the VIP section, he really didn’t recognize all the stares coming his way. Men and women were checking him out, and given that he’d been a scrawny weakling before, he kept wondering if he had an entire head of broccoli in between his front teeth. Or maybe a horn growing out of his head.

Bloody nose he didn’t notice? How about undiagnosed cystic acne.

“Well, Al, if you decide to upgrade from the jeans-and-hoodie bull-shit, let me know. Happy to help.” Shuli brushed Allhan’s knee gently, like the guy knew that everything still ached. “Anyway, I gotta go. But the boys’ll take care of you—”

There was an instant uproar from the group, all kinds of versions of Shuli making a protest for their leader to continue to hang. Even the human women who’d been briefly welcomed into the circle of black light hopped on board with the hoopla, although for them, they were just going with the flow in the hopes of being seen as second-date prospects.

Which was not going to happen.

Shuli got back to his feet and patted the air like a rock star trying to get a crowd to settle. “Hey, you fuckers don’t have jobs like Al and I do. We’re working stiffs.”

“We are gainfully engaged, too,” someone retorted.

“Wanking off to your investment portfolios is paraphilia, not employment.”

A couple of cocktail napkins went flying, and their impotent paths made Allhan think of birds shot out of the sky, that which should have soared nothing but deadweight in the air. Meanwhile, Shuli tried to get to the emergency exit next to their seating area. It took the male a good ten minutes to disentangle himself, and it was always like this. He was everybody’s social superior, richer, more charismatic, smarter—and, because he fought in the war, a hero.

He was also ahstrux nohtrum to the heir to the throne.

And that was some real clout right there.

“Tell L.W. we said hey,” somebody else piped up. “He should come out more.”

“Would you want him here?” Shuli peeked at his sleek gold watch. “Although it’s not like he’s got anything better to do.”

Okay, that was a lie, but Allhan kept his mouth shut. The only reason he knew what Shuli and L.W. were up to in the field was because of the things he himself had been doing behind the scenes. Two wrongs didn’t make a right, but they sure as hell locked you into place with any inside information you might have stumbled onto.

Meanwhile, the illicit fighting was taking a toll on Shuli. Underneath the swagger, there was real tension in those shoulders, and you had to wonder whether any of the others noticed or cared that the male was in obvious pain. Probably a no on both fronts. Members of the glymera, particularly slick partyers sowing their oats before they had to settle down in arranged matings, were not known for empathy and this was good news for Shuli. The male had plenty of reasons not to draw attention to whatever wounds he’d sustained, and just as he was no doubt glad nobody was asking questions, there was going to be no medical attention for him. Not unless there was a serious infection or something that refused to heal on its own.

Which again was the way it had to be when you’d been taken off the official fighting schedule, but were still going out into the field.

“See you, Allhan.”

Coming back to attention, he looked over his shoulder. The aristocrat gave him a nod, and then the hail-fellow-well-met stuff washed out of that strikingly handsome face. As Shuli turned away to the emergency fire door, his expression became grim as death itself.

After the steel panel clapped shut and the cold draft was eaten by all the body heat in the space, there was a tangible deflation in the energy of everyone who’d been left behind, the Perrier losing its proverbial fizz.

Allhan checked his phone and wondered why he’d bothered to come early. Except he knew the why. He just thought it was fucking pathetic.

“How about we go to Smokes?” somebody said.

God, he still didn’t know their names. Then again, he’d been adopted like a stray and he was way below their league socially. Not a lot of cause for proper introductions. They also all looked alike to him, the trim-cut suits, the open-collared shirts, the various shades of dark hair. He’d taken to IDing them to himself by the human women they hit on. One was into blondes, another redheads. Two of them liked to take women back together, as if they were critique partners for the sex and committed to real-time feedback.

He’d only paid attention to Shuli because of the L.W. connection.

And the grape-sized diamonds in those lobes.

As the six got to their feet and finished their drinks with a volley of chatter, the rush for the cigar place struck him as ungrounded enthusiasm. They were looking to change the vibe by a shift in location, but the trouble was, they were the luggage they carried, and without Shuli to set an example, they were a little lost. Still, it went without saying that he was invited to come along even though he was nothing more than a cushion warmer: Once Shuli had marked him as okay, he always had a seat at the table.

So he had to give them credit for that.

He glanced at his phone again. He had seventeen minutes.

Why the hell had he thought Lyric might come? Then again, a fool and his delusions were rarely parted when it came to infatuation.

The female had found her proper mate, so she wasn’t going out anymore, yet he’d managed to convince himself that maybe she’d swing by here to see her twin. Yeah, except Rhamp also wasn’t anywhere in sight, and besides, if she wanted that fighter’s company, he was her damn brother. She could just look at him across the table at First Meal. Or call him. Text.

IM, DM… Holiday Inn.

As the ancient hip-hop lyric came to him, he felt a wave of nausea crest and eyed the table that was scattered with empty cocktail glasses. What he needed was some ginger ale. He’d been living on the stuff since the change, and he was becoming quite convinced that he was never eating proper food again.

“Shall we, gentlemales?” one of the aristocrats announced over at the fire exit. “Al? You coming?”

“No, thanks. B-but… thank you.”

“You know where we’ll be if you change your mind.”

Shuli’s boys started funneling out of the sunken couches, and when the human women went to follow, the brush-offs were charming but firm. Phone numbers were exchanged, but no dialing was going to occur. A quick trip to a club’s private bathroom stall was one thing. Dating, relationships—mating? Or marriage, which was what the humans called it? Hard pass.

Members of the glymera did not settle down with the other species.

“Later, my guy—”

“—bye, Al—”

“—care, my man.”

All the males checked in on their way to the fire door, and he noted the new respect in their eyes. His transition really had changed things, hadn’t it.

Oh, look. He made a joke.

Honestly touched, he offered them waves as they took off. And in their wake, the left-behind women looked him over with a greedy interest he was wholly unfamiliar—and totally uncomfortable—with. God, he didn’t like the smells coming off their bodies. Their arousals made him breathe through his mouth, not because he was excited, but because he was trying to dull the scents.

“So, what was your name?” the brunette asked him in a drawl.

As she leaned down to him, her breasts were as pointed as traffic cones and the long, fake tracks she’d put in her hair swept forward and showed peeks of her scalp. Wow. Up close, her makeup was thick as spackle and those lashes had to be plastic.

Otherwise, two woolly caterpillars had given their lives to make her eyebrows look like they were double jointed.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Thank you, no.”

As she seemed disappointed, he supposed the opening salvo might have been seen as a kind of compliment. By someone else. But he was beyond virginal, and besides, with everything he had going on, he was not any kind of relationship material.

“Your loss,” the blond one drawled.

On that disdainful note, the bunch of them laser-sighted the other seating areas, and he passed some time watching them size up their options in the VIP section like they were trying to get a good break on a car lease at a dealership. Lot of competition for them on the other sunken sofas, but he guessed they were beautiful enough with their long hair and low-cut dresses. They would find another lap or two.

Maybe even some phone numbers that might pick up.

As they wandered off, Allhan rechecked his phone. Then went back to watching the crowd.

Each of the dozen or so areas was bathed in a different shade of blue light, and there was no mistaking why Shuli had chosen to stake out the couches he had. The illumination here was the dimmest, and the proximity to the emergency exit and the alley beyond was unbeatable.

Time to go.

Just like Shuli, he was careful getting up on his feet, and when he went to walk, holy shit. Everything hurt. His knees and hips. His spine. His feet. Doc Jane had told him the post-transition aches would get better, but he wasn’t sure if she was right. It had been how many nights now since his body had quadrupled in size?

Since he’d taken Lyric’s blood?

God, there was a special cruelty that he’d had to take her vein when the change had hit. Nothing like getting a taste of paradise and then never, ever having a chance to go there again.

Limping over to the steel door, he took one last look across the space. Not even Mharta had come tonight. Good thing, actually. He could only imagine himself trying to strike up a conversation with that female just so he could bring things over to the subject of Lyric.

Mharta scared the shit out of him.

Punching the bar to open the way out, his skin prickled as the winter wind rushed in to scrimmage against the interior’s warmth like it intended to turn the entire club into a meat locker. As the door slammed shut behind him, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looked up at all the snowflakes. The storm was finally slowing down. When he’d come here on his forced night off, it had been a positive blizzard—

Righting his head, he flared his nostrils and took in a deep breath.

Blood. In the alley.

Vampire blood.

Shit.

CHAPTER THREE

Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Yeah, the fuck Denne was sorry for spilling the vinaigrette.

Standing over the two-top, she made a show out of the golly-gee-willikers fake-ass apology, spitting all kinds of mea culpas as she bent down and picked up the ramekin from the floor. As she straightened, she looked the young woman right in the eye.

“I’ve gotten it all over your dress.” She pointed across the dining room to the back. “Let me show you to the bathroom and—”

“Are you fucking kidding me!” The man slammed his phone down on the table, his antipasto plate coughing out a couple of olives in surprise. “Where’s the goddamn manager—”

“I didn’t mean to spill the dressing.” The hell she didn’t. “Let me just help—”

“Eddie, it’s okay.” The young woman rose from her chair, putting her trembling hands out. “I’ll just go fix it—”

“Manager,” he snapped. “Now. And you don’t go nowhere. Sit the fuck down.”

“Y-y-you’re not gonna want to be seen with me like this, Eddie.”

She indicated the spill on her dress, the blue silk having sucked up the vinaigrette like a dream, the stain ruining the short skirt.

Narrowed eyes raked down the woman like she was a Porsche with a scratch on the door. “You find the fucking manager after you clean her up.”

“Yup,” Denne said. “That’s the plan—”

“Sir,” he snapped as he drummed the table impatiently. “Get it right. And I’m waiting.”

Hold your breath on that, bitch, she thought.

Leading the way, Denne stayed silent. So did the woman. To keep the optics right, she took them both down the hall where the public bathrooms were, just in case the guy had been to the restaurant before. When they were in the shadows, she told the woman to hold tight, and then went back to check. The man was deep in his phone, swiping like he was poking eyes out.

Returning in a rush, she whispered, “I’m going to lead you through the kitchen. Follow me—”

The woman grabbed on to Denne’s hands. “Wait. Wait—I don’t think I should…”

“Just come with me now. That’s all you need to do.”

It would be so easy to get into that brain and pull some levers to help expedite the situation. Humans were easy to manipulate like that. She was already over-involved, though.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Denne shook her head. “Yes, you do—or we wouldn’t be standing here right now with salad dressing on your skirt.”

The nod of resignation took a moment, and there was no wasting it. Denne took the woman’s hand and drew her quickly to the flap door.

The difference between front and back of the house was measured in noise, smells, and heat, and she wanted to move fast in case that resolve wavered as the rush of the people and all the sizzling pans and the flames licking up from the grill registered.

“Marco,” she barked over the din. “I need a manager on sixteen.”

“You got it. Stu, take the range.”

As Chef wiped his hands and untied his white apron, Denne strode for her office, pulling the woman along like something that was on wheels. When she got to the open doorway, she stood to the side and indicated the way in. There was another pause, and then the stilettos clip-clip’d past.

That stain on the blue skirt looked like dried blood.

Closing the pair of them in, Denne sat back against the door as the woman wrapped her arms around herself and walked in a little circle, that blond hair falling forward in a curtain of silk. The extensions gleamed even under the wan fluorescent lighting, and you had to wonder if the bastard had paid for them. They looked expensive. Just like the breast implants.

D cups didn’t come on bodies that thin, generally.

“Is this really happening?” The woman shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Who can I call for you? Someone to pick you up—”

“Nobody. There’s nobody.” She looked to the door, her eyes going frantic again. “What am I doing. I need to go back out there. This is—”

“Who am I calling. And if it’s an Uber, you don’t have to tell me where it’s really going. I’ll still pay for it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t get involved with things.”

God, how true was that. Whether it was here at the restaurant or in the s’Hisbe, she was just floating through life, really.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Okay, fair enough. So who are we calling—”

“He knows where my mother lives.” The woman put her face in her hands. “And my son is there. I have to go back to that table. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

“All the reason to get the fuck out when you can.”

Abruptly, the woman straightened and took a deep breath. “I’m going back out there. I’ll hide the mess as best I can. It’s fine. I’ll be… fine.”

Goddamn it.

Stepping in front of her, Denne blocked the exit and did exactly what she shouldn’t have, what she didn’t have permission to do. She penetrated the consciousness of this stranger, her mind entering the human’s with a push of cognition—

A car interior. Illuminated with an orange-red glow.

Driving along a city road, the streetlamps flaring into the interior… hitting the fleshy face of that man. Thunderous rage as he looked over from behind the wheel. His mouth was moving fast and nasty, spit fanning out, his flat front teeth on display as his upper lip curled in a sneer—

A hand slammed on the woman’s thigh, gripping and torquing the flesh through the short blue skirt.

I’m sorry, Eddie. I won’t do it again—

You’re fucking right you won’t.

I didn’t mean to be late—

What I tell you. Another shaft of light passed over the fury in the man’s face. What did I fucking tell you! I don’t wait for no woman.

Frail hands covered the bear claw locked on her leg. Eddie, you’re hurting me—

And so it went, the same thing over and over.

Before Denne pulled out of the woman’s mind, she inserted one powerful instinct: Leave.

The woman winced and rubbed her forehead. When she dropped her hand, tears trembled on her false lashes.

“I can help you.” Denne stretched an arm over her desk and offered a Kleenex box. “I can take care of this. Do you understand what I’m saying.”

Shit, she was already way over her skis, except maybe the woman would solve this problem by refusing, even with that little cognitive adjustment. She’d be getting herself killed, of course. Maybe not tonight, maybe not next week, but eventually good ol’ Eddie with the grabby hands and the temper was going to put her on life support.

“How,” came the whisper.

“I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you anymore. That’s all you need to know.”

“Who are you.”

The demand was presented in a flat tone, as if there had been a lot of out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire’s for her.

“Just a friend,” Denne lied.

Those frightened eyes went up and down, clearly measuring her savior, and Denne considered herself from an outsider’s POV. She was on the tall side, with skin the same tone as the woman’s own. As always, she was dressed in black slacks and a black button-down, with black Nikes. She’d never given a crap about clothes, and the midnight wardrobe was so she could easily step in and waitress if things got too busy or they needed a sub. Her hair was in thirty-four braids back from her face, following the tradition of one per year of life, and the length was left to flow down her back in a profusion of waves that she straightened every couple of months.

No makeup because who had time for slopping chemicals on the face. No jewelry even though there was a vault of the shit back in the palace. Nothing special. Nothing unusual. And the lie had worked for the last ten years, ever since she’d started coming to Sal’s right after her transition. None of the people here knew what she was. And those who thought they knew the “who” of her were elderly humans remembering her dad when he took over the place from the original Sal’s descendants some thirty-five years ago: She was the daughter taking over the running of the joint.

At least that was the truth, not deception.

Not because she particularly cared about the restaurant, though. She’d just had to do it. After all, how could a man not age, at all, in three and a half decades? iAm had to take a break for a generation, and in another twenty-five years, he could come back and pretend to be her son.

Humans had such short lives.

“He’s very strong.” The woman cleared her throat. “Eddie… is so strong.”

Denne lowered her chin and stared out from under her brows. “So am I.”

CHAPTER FOUR

In the alley outside of Bathe, the scent of vampire blood was so thick, it cut through the blizzard’s swirling wind and Allhan tasted it down the back of his throat. As he cranked his head in the direction the copper rush was coming from, he told himself to get walking. To call and get help. To do… something.

Except he just stood there, the snowflakes falling on him like he was some statue in a park, the gusts tearing around his motionless body, his hearing receding until all he had was the echo of his own heartbeat. Which was uneven as hell.

Batting the snow away from his face, he expected to find the lane littered with bodies and dismembered limbs, the still-warm corpses scattered all battlefield-carnage and then some. But there was nothing in the glow of the security lights that were mounted on the roofs. Just dirty snow dusted with a heavy layer of fresh, restless powder.

No red stains, no scramble of footprints. No fresh corpses.

Was he imagining this?

He had to be. There was just no way that collection of high-flying aristocrats had been killed out here, in the alley off the fucking club, wearing the stylish clothes and pricey colognes they’d put on in their glymera mansions. Males like that just didn’t… end… as casualties of the war.

Off in the distance, a siren started wailing. So the help that was coming wasn’t the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s. They rode silent.

As an ambulance tore down Market and kept right on going, he shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and took out his cell phone. He didn’t want to look at the screen, but goddamn it, he had to.

No texts from his contact.

He exhaled in relief. So this wasn’t his fault—wait, wrong phone. He was holding his Samsung. Cursing, he had to pat around to find the cheap-ass piece-of-shit burner he’d bought at a CVS from a display of all kinds of let’s-be-shadys. He’d paid cash for the thing because of course he had.

No texts on his burner.

“Hello,” he called out as he tucked it away. “Anybody there? Y-you okay?”

When there was no reply, he trudged through the snow, heading down the club’s flank toward the rear of the building and the parking lot behind. In the back of his mind, he was aware that he was trying to talk himself out of everything he was smelling. It was like he could manipulate reality if he just ignored his nose.

If he just didn’t call for help.

He was still arguing with his senses when he came up to an unlit passageway that cut between the buildings on the alley’s other side. Half the size of the lane proper, the thing bisected the restaurant that fronted onto Market and the real estate agency that faced Jefferson.

The scent of blood wafted out of the pitch-black shoot, like a warning in a Stephen King novel.

Squinting his eyes, he strained to see what was—

“Allhan. Help… me…”

The strangled male voice was gut-punch familiar, and he threw himself into the darkness, slipping and sliding over the ice, penetrating the walkthrough like he knew CPR. Or how to tourniquet shit.

Oh… God.

As his keen eyesight adjusted, he saw the bodies. They were facedown. All of them. Shuli’s entire crew, in those suits, with those colognes, bleeding in the snow, their arms and legs bent at bad angles.

As a hand reached for him, he stumbled over and dropped to his knees to grab on to it. Going only by the back of the head, he wasn’t sure who it was, but he didn’t know their real names, anyway.

Holding the palm, he fumbled with his Samsung. “Y-you’re okay.” The fuck the male was okay. “I’m c-calling for help—I’m calling—” Except he dropped the damn thing, the cell skipping out of his grip like a fish. “I’mgoingtogethelp. Helpweneedhelp…”

Stretching to get the phone back, he shoved it in his own face, and wondered if his horrified expression might not get him in. Not the problem. There wasn’t enough light. With a sloppy thumb he entered his six-digit code and—

“Lessers… smelled lessers… heard a clicking… they tasered us… took them…” The male coughed blood into the snow, and the gurgle was horrible. “They were… taken…”

Allhan stopped the SOS he was typing out. “Who?” He looked around frantically, and tried to remember how to count. “You’re saying the slayers abducted someone? Who?”

Six had left the club… four were here. There were only four.

“A pair of slayers… looked alike… Tasers and then the knives… took them…”

The dying male’s words were lost to babbling, the syllables running together until they were unintelligible.

“It’s okay, it’s all r-right.” After he sent the alarm out, he shuffled himself even closer. “Help is coming. Th-they’re going to take care of you, and we’ll f-find the others.”

With strength he was still unused to wielding, he pulled the male into his lap, rolling him over—

Allhan caught the curse before it came out of his mouth. The handsome face was the color of the snow, and the pale blue eyes were unfocused, as if the male had no clue he’d been turned over and moved—oh… God. The knife wound on the side of the aristocrat’s throat was right across the jugular, and the blood loss was tremendous, staining the collar and front of the button-down, and the entire left side of the jacket.

“Y-you’re okay,” Allhan croaked as tears flooded his eyes. “H-help is coming. Stay with me—”

The male coughed violently, and blood exploded upward, the spray hitting Allhan’s face, hot as boiling water. As he gasped, the aristocrat went into a seizure, the body flopping all around.

“I’ve g-got you.” He gathered the male closer and tried to stay calm. “I’ve…”

Wiping his face off on the crook of his arm, he looked in desperation out of the passageway as minutes became hours. The male’s last breaths were loud as a chainsaw revving right next to his head, and that gurgling, the fucking gurgling. He wanted to scream for the guy to just die already. For godsakes, stop fighting the losing battle—

As if the aristocrat followed his unspoken command, everything suddenly stopped: the wheezing breath, the jerking limbs, the pulsing leak at the side of the neck.

“N-no, no, no, I didn’t mean it, you g-gotta stay with me—oh, God, oh… fuck…”

Determined to do something, anything, he pushed the male flat on the ground, got up onto his knees, and tilted that head back. Pinching the nose, he took a great inhale and sealed their mouths. As he blew hard and tasted blood, he had a moment of purpose and hope.

The air escaped out the side of the neck on a whistle.

As Allhan’s stomach flipped over with dread, he tried again, his tears falling onto the face of the male he was not going to be able to bring around, no matter how many times he tried to force air in, no matter if he started pounding on that sternum. The pale blue eyes were still open, though, and for a split second, it felt like they were focused on him.

Like they were accusing him of everything he was doing in secret.

“W-what’s your name.” He swiped his sleeve across his cheeks. “I need to know your name.”

With sloppy hands, he went through the fine suit jacket. When there was no wallet in any of the interior pockets, he moved down to the pants. He had to let the parents know. He had to be ready for when the Brothers came to tell them the names.

Nothing. No ID, no phone.

“S-stay here.” Like the guy was going anywhere? “I-I’ll be…”

Paddling on the ice to another black-haired male—the one who’d only liked redheads—he turned that body over. The frozen face and wide, empty eyes were the stuff of nightmares, and his hands shook as he started rifling through pockets. The throat had also been slit, so deeply he could see flashes of the white vertebrae of the spine. And when once again there was nothing in any of the pockets, he did a quick search of the other two. As he turned them over, it was clear they’d died from stabs in the belly, the wounds long and gaping as if the knife blade had been dragged up for the gutting, intestines and internal organs slopping out.

As he started to hyperventilate, he had to sit back on his heels and slow his respiration. He prayed that the real addresses hadn’t been on those fake driver’s licenses—

Allhan pitched to the side and threw up his First Meal. All of it.

Bracing a hand on the snowy ground, he waited to see if his stomach wanted to evacuate itself, and he checked his phone. There were so many texts from the Brotherhood, confirmation that they were on their way, he tried to feel relief at all the responses he got. Except then he frowned. No location. He hadn’t given his location and there was no tracking where he was because he’d canned his ping.

On account of the real reason he was down here.

It was nearly impossible to type out: side alley bathe

“S-stay with me, j-just… stay with me…”

Who the hell was he talking to? They were already dead. All of them—and the poor souls who’d been abducted were the focus now.

Allhan’s eyes bounced from wound to wound, neck, neck, stomach, stomach. He was no expert in forensics, but it didn’t take an Einstein to guess there had been two slayers on the slaughter.

And they’d each taken a vampire to interrogate.

Letting his head fall back, he felt the snow dapple his hot cheeks and swollen lids. This was not about him, thank God.

The lesser he’d been dealing with worked alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

Denne stepped out of Sal’s main entrance while pulling on her hooded black parka. The shallow steps and walkway down to the curb were covered in an all-weather, royal-red felt runner, and overhead, a matching red awning with gold trim paralleled the landing strip. The Old Hollywood, Oscars-arrival vibe was intentional, and the uniformed valet in a kiosk off to the side was part of that.

“Hey, Emilio,” she said as she went down to the kid in the box. “I need a favor.”

Marco’s nephew swung open the half door and hid his cigarette behind his back with a flush. “Whatever you want, Denne.”

As smoke came out with the words he spoke, she batted a dismissive hand. “I don’t care about that as long as it’s not weed.”

Their customers were of that generation. Getting drunk on Manhattans was fine. A joint, even though legal in New York state, was not.

“I put it away for the people. Jus’ so you knows.” With a flourish, he demonstrated how he ducked the coffin nail behind the vertical board full of keys, and then he stepped out of the heated interior. “What can I do you for?”

“Guy’s gonna come out here steaming. You’ll know who he is. I want you to send him back to get his own car from the parking lot.”

The kid went still. “Yeah, sure. You want me to go with him?”

For a split second, she eyed their resident asphalt jockey. Marco’s nephew was six two and played offensive tackle on SUNY Caldwell’s DII football team. More than that, as he unzipped that parka, it was clear he was prepared to handle things in ways she shouldn’t have been surprised about. There were also going to be no questions asked.

No wonder she and her father always felt so at home here. These humans were their kind of people.

“It’s cold out here, Denne.” He nodded back at the restaurant’s entrance. “Go inside and lemme take care of this.”

“You’re the best. But I got it.” She pivoted away. Then looked at him over her shoulder. “And listen, if things are too sideways, just let it go. Bring the car to him if you have to.”

The kid frowned and reached back behind the keys. He took a deep draw on the cigarette, and exhaled off to the side like he didn’t want Denne breathing in any of the smoke.

“Nah, that ain’t how this gonna go. You want him in the parking lot on his own two feet, he’s going back to the parking lot that way.”

“When was the last raise you were given?”

“About a month ago. You take good care of the people here. I don’t need no more.”

Denne nodded with a little smile and headed back up the runner to the double glass doors. The old school gallantry was nice, and no doubt the kid assumed his uncle was the one who was going to issue the proverbial correction out back. That was more than fine with her.

As she reentered, she walked up another handful of carpeted steps and nodded at the maître d’. The older man in the double-breasted suit was Marco’s uncle, and even though he was pushing seventy, he had the whip-thin build of a smoker and the slicked-back hair of a Rat Packer from a hundred years ago.

Lotta smokers in that family. Too bad humans got cancer—and maybe she needed to talk to Emilio about that.

“You good?” the maître d’ asked her.

“Never better, Cosmo.”

“That’s right.”

Glancing through the archway to the left, she got an eyeful of Marco’s girth standing over table sixteen with his hands on his hips and his feet set like he was about to take a semi to the chest at highway speeds—and win the match. He was so broad, she couldn’t get a screenshot of the man of the hour, but she didn’t need one. No doubt he was boiling where he sat, expecting his ass to be kissed and pissed off when that wasn’t happening.

It was entirely possible she would not be the one to “take care of this,” but rather that their chef would throw the bastard through one of the building’s side walls.

Passing through the flap door into the kitchen, she routed by the carving station. “Hey, Sandy, how we doing?”

The middle-aged woman behind the roast beef smiled. “I’m good, Denne. You good?”

“Is that a little too rare for medium?”

As Sandy grabbed a pair of reading glasses out of the pocket of her chef’s coat and carefully inspected the perfectly done hunk, Denne snagged one of the carving knives that were long as an arm and sharp as anything you could do surgery with.

“I dunno,” the woman said as she squinted at the meat. “It looks good to me—but you want me to grab another? I can talk to Chef?”

Tucking the blade into her parka, Denne leaned in, too. “Actually, my bad. The red lights always throw me. It’s perfect.”

“You sure?” Sandy’s myopic peepers strained as she looked back up. “Your eyes’re better than mine.”

“Nah, I’m sure. Sorry ’bout that.”

“Okay, Denne. Whatever you want.”

Moving fast and dodging waiters, she shot down that back hall and paused by the closed door of her office. When she heard a murmuring voice, she guessed the young woman was on the landline and hoped like hell whoever was on the other end was talking sense to her. In any event, the wheels were set in motion now.

No going back.

At the restaurant’s rear exit, she punched the release bar and stepped out into the swirling snow. There were about thirty cars lined up with protractor precision by Emilio. Lot of SUVs with high clearance for the snow buildup and four-wheel drive for the ice, and all of the vehicles had fresh flakes on their hoods and roofs from the storm.

Between one blink and the next, she returned to the woman’s memories of the ride here, and focused on the steering wheel the man had been gripping.

Of course it was a BMW.

And what do you know. The M-whatever-the-hell was parked right over there, at the end of the first row of vehicles—and there was no surprise that it had a little-dick, electric-blue-watch-me-everybody paint job.

“The man should be murdered for doing that to a car,” she muttered. “Much less all the other shit.”

Denne put her hood up and jogged through the accumulation to her own ride. The F-250 Super Duty was a beast of a truck, and she’d had it blacked out so the thing was especially filthy from all the salt the city had put on the roads before tonight’s storm. Then again, for what she was about to use it for, she wanted the thing to blend in with the other winter-crap’d stuff driving around.

Unlocking the front of the dually cab, she hopped up behind the wheel, took the knife out of her parka, and put the blade on the center console. As she cranked the engine over and the thing caught like something caged and hungry, she had to smile. She’d always loved the sound of a big block, and even though so many vehicles on the roads now were electric, there were categories in the industry that had remained gas-powered. Big haulers and workhorses like hers were one of them.

Her parents didn’t know she had it, and not because she’d lied to them.

She just hadn’t mentioned the purchase and it had been a year since her father had been on site here at Sal’s. If they asked? She’d tell them. She didn’t have anything to hide.

Well, when it came to tonight, she was going to. But like any of this was going to matter? They probably wouldn’t even care.

As the windshield wipers swept the snow free from in front of her, she canned the air vents because they were blasting cold air and measured the Beamer. From where she was parked, all she had to do was roll forward at an idle, so she put herself in drive and drifted out of her spot next to the dumpster. She always backed in, just in case.

Who knew that tonight’s version of JIC would involve something you cut roast beef with.

When her truck was parallel to the asshole’s coupe, she measured things and moved herself forward about three more feet. She left the engine running, and stretched for her glove box. Inside, there was a little remote and she pointed it at the back of the restaurant. One click and the security cameras went dark.

Getting out, she went around and cracked open the front passenger-side door.

Then she just waited.

It didn’t take long. Then again, Marco had been a bouncer before he’d been a chef, and Emilio took every job he was ever given seriously.

The man with the jowls and the dating apps came steaming around the side of the restaurant like a bull, great puffs exploding out of his nose and wafting over his shoulders. The second he cleared the building’s corner, the blinkers of the BMW flashed.

“—fucking bitch—”

He was so busy barking curses and retribution, he didn’t notice her or the truck until he was right up in her Ford’s headlights.

His furious plodding stopped. And before he could say anything, she stepped forward into the glow because she wanted him to know who it was.

“What the fuck?” His surprise was immediately replaced by an arrogant calculation. “You have fun tonight? Was this fucking fun for you?”

He started pounding his open palm with a curled fist like he wanted to show off exactly how comfortable he was hitting a woman. And as he continued to taunt her and smack, smack, smack at his fucking lifeline, Denne focused in on him, until all she could see was his flushed, pudgy face with its busted capillaries and bulbous nose.

She had a dim thought that if he kept eating and drinking like he did, he was going to end up dead from coronary artery disease. But that wasn’t going to be a problem for him, was it.

“I have something for you,” she said in a low voice.

“Well, I got something for you, too, bitch—”

She closed the distance between them and jabbed the kitchen knife at the same time. And she held his shocked stare as he gasped.

“Oh, sorry,” she tacked on as she cranked the blade up his internal organs. “I forgot the sir, didn’t I.”

As blood flowed onto her hand, warm and syrup-like, she smiled and flashed her fangs. “I’ll just put some respect on this… sir.”

She shoved in even farther, and slapped her hand over his mouth as he started to scream in agony. And then she worked the knife some more, going left, right, down. Up again.

“Kind of like hollowing out a pumpkin, really.”

His eyes were so wide and gleaming, they were like a pair of full moons peering over the edge of her hand, and his hard, driving breaths sucked and blew against her palm. As she breathed in the scent of his blood, the satisfaction she felt was almost sexual, the find-out part of the fuck-around equation driven home with a nice, sharp point.

“And now it’s time to go.”

With her elbow, she opened the passenger door to her truck, and she steered him with the knife handle. He was totally compliant. Then again, she was in complete control of him, and that must have been a shocker for the bullying asshole.

Plus, yeah, sure, the whole abdominal owie thing.

Releasing the clamp on his mouth, she bent her knees and grabbed him around the thighs. Because she was strong, it wasn’t that big a strain jacking him up into the bucket seat—then again, she was careful to use proper deadlift technique.

God, the jokes just wrote themselves, really.

Oh, and thank heavens for WeatherTech covers and floor mats. When she’d installed them all, it had been about preserving the truck’s interior against normal wear-and-tear because she was a nasty neat when it came to her few possessions.

Murder was over and above that rubric, sure. But assuming they did their job, it was a shame she wasn’t going to be able to leave a candid five-star Amazon review on the products.

And hey, ’cuz safety first, she hopped up on the running board, stretched the seatbelt over her victim’s girth, and locked him into place.

“Comfy?” She patted his lapel. “Good boy. We don’t have all that far to go, but the roads are slippery tonight. I’d hate to have something happen on the way.”

Both of his fleshy paws hovered around the handle sticking out of his stomach, the circle of his palms forming a little bull’s-eye.

“I’m also a licensed driver, so don’t worry on that front, either.”

“W-what…” he wheezed. “Are you… doing…”

“I’d start with why if I were you. The what is pretty self-explanatory, given that I’ve just cut you open and disconnected most of your internal organs, don’t you think?” She put her face into his, so he didn’t have to work hard to find her eyes in all his pain and confusion. “I know what you’ve been doing to her, and I’m not going to let you hurt her anymore. That’s the why, and no, you’re not coming out of this alive.”

She shut him in and bent down. He’d dropped his key fob and she snatched it from the snow. Not too much spilled blood there, all things considering, but she scuffed things up anyway, kicking fresh snow over where they’d been standing. And the good news? Humans didn’t have the kind of nose she did so they weren’t going to notice any copper tint to the air.

Just as she was walking around the front of her truck, the restaurant’s rear entrance popped open and she froze.

With the light streaming out of the hallway and the exterior security fixtures pointing into the lot, the person was nothing but a silhouette. The build gave it away.

Marco.

“You okay there, Denne?” he asked.

Now, there was a loaded question—and could he see through the front windshield? Yes, there was snow still falling, but it was just flurries, really, and everything was tinted except the front glass. Her first instinct was to turn around and check, except that would just draw attention to what was sitting shotgun. And yeah, sure, she could take the head chef’s memories. She just didn’t want to do that to a human she liked and respected—

Oh, shit. The young woman was still in her office, and this was going to take a little time.

“I’m just bringing my friend home,” she called back to him. “Can you do me a favor? There’s a customer in my office. She needs a ride.”

“No problem, I’ll have Emilio take her wherever she needs to go.” There was a pause. “You want help out there?”

Denne shook her head. “Nah. I got this.”

There was another heartbeat of silence, and she had the thought that her fourth wall was finally being breached. She’d been really good over the last decade, coming to the restaurant, learning the ropes, fitting in by pitching in so that none of them thought she was anything different than they were—

Marco lifted his hand. “Okay, I’ll take care of everything on this end. You handle that, and you’ll let me know if you… need anything.”

Then the door shut. Like they’d merely been touching base on a shift change or maybe the weather for tomorrow.

Denne exhaled and closed her eyes. God, she loved Italians. They just understood the way things rolled.

As she pivoted around to the truck, she saw that the automatic wipers had kept the windshield clear, and the glow from the dashboard meant that the man’s shocked, pale face was well lit enough to qualify for a driver’s license picture.

No blood was showing, though. That was all below the diaphragm.

As she went over and got behind the wheel, she glanced at her passenger. He was breathing in a series of hitches, and he had this rapt expression on his pasty face. Maybe he was approaching the human version of the Fade?

He should not be getting past that door. Hell was where he belonged, and she was going to send him there.

Abruptly, his head flopped in her direction, and a tear escaped his eye. “Help… me…”

“Not as much fun when the pain is yours, huh.” Smiling, she put the engine in gear. “Sir.”

CHAPTER SIX

So you don’t know their names?” Xcor asked.

As the bitterly cold wind changed direction in the alley, Allhan shook his head at the heavily armed fighter in front of him. The leader of the Band of Bastards, the male was one of the Brotherhood’s closest allies, and it was obvious why. He was calm and rational, in spite of the horror in the passageway.

“I’m really sorry,” Allhan said. “Th-they’re Shuli’s friends. Were… Shuli’s friends. I’m not their type, but you know, he let me hang if I was down here, and th-they were okay with me. But I d-don’t actually know them.”

The patient nod that came back at him had all kinds of handle-the-kid-easy in it. “That’s all right. We’ll contact him.”

“I have Shuli’s number if you need it?” What the fuck was he saying. Of course they had Shuli’s digits. “And what about the two who were taken alive?”

“The descriptions you gave are very helpful, and I’ve sent them around to everyone. We’ll find them, I promise.”

The vow was spoken with the kind of banked aggression that nobody needed a translator for, and Allhan glanced up at the cameras that were mounted on the club’s flank and the surrounding buildings’ eaves. The true power of the Black Dagger Brotherhood was about so much more than fighting. They had ways of operating in and around Caldwell that put human surveillance to shame, and he had no doubt that his boss, the Brother Vishous, was going to co-opt every single monitoring device in the entirety of the fucking zip code if he had to.

Allhan also knew that he himself would be at the forefront of that effort.

He’d spent the last six months positioning himself for exactly this kind of work.

As his stomach went sour, a set of brilliant headlights pierced down at him, sure as if he were the target of an interrogation. Lifting his arm to shield his eyes, he turned his head and discovered he was standing at the start of the passageway. As the glare of the approaching vehicle penetrated the narrow chute, the bodies on the snow became as obvious as screams in silence and he relived rolling each one of them over.

A sudden suffocation had him taking some deep breaths that did shit for the congestion in his lungs, even as the cold registered in his nose and the back of his throat.

“Can you dematerialize?” the fighter asked him.

“Ah… yeah.” Maybe? “Sure.”

“We’re going to take this from here.” Xcor’s hand eased down on Allhan’s shoulder. “I want you to head back to the Wheel.”

“Okay.”

Except he stayed, lingering on the fringes, as the Brothers John Matthew and Qhuinn got out of an enclosed box van. They had bundles in their arms, and at first he wondered what they were carrying as they walked by him and entered the passageway. When he heard flapping and caught a whiff of plastic, he realized it was the body bags.

When his shoulders bumped up against the club’s cold, concrete flank, he realized he’d backed away, and without thinking, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie. The cigarette he took out had been hand-rolled, and the Bic that came with it was red. He had nicked both of them from the home he’d been welcomed into for the last couple of months.

Vishous had so much of both the coffin nails and of the lighters that there was no way he’d miss them.

And it was weird. First, Allhan had gotten used to the scent of Turkish tobacco because wherever V was, there was usually a cigarette lit, one being put out or another getting readied for the smoking. After he’d gone through his transition, he’d noticed whenever he took a deep breath and the smoke was in the air, he felt better somehow. Calmer. More relaxed.

He’d been worried about tonight, even before all of this heartbreaking tragedy. So that’s why he’d taken what he had from the Brother.

With hands that shook, he flicked the lighter and put the cigarette between his lips. Leaning into the little flame, he did what he’d watched V do a million times, sucking in—

The hacking cough came out of nowhere and nearly snapped his torso in half. As he doubled over and had to hold himself up by bracing against one knee, he was aware of everybody looking over at him. The two Brothers. Xcor. Payne, who had also shown up. Then again, he was loud enough to wake the dead, and wasn’t that a fucking depressing thought rather than a bad joke.

When he could breathe halfway normally again, he straightened and put the cigarette right back to his lips. This time, he was more cautious with the inhaling, and though things burned their way down and his lungs felt like concrete, he managed to hold for a moment and exhale without too much of a problem.

One by one, the bodies were taken out of the passageway.

Meanwhile, he smoked his first cigarette all the way down to the tips of his fingers and then he dropped what was left in the snow and stomped on it with his damp Converse. With no filter, the hand-rolled was biodegradable so he left it where it was.

And wished he had another as the last of the remains were taken over to the rear of the box van. The way the bags sagged in between the holds at the head and feet ruined him. Then he made the mistake of looking in the back of the vehicle just before John Matthew closed the double doors. The sight of the black plastic sheaths stacked so neatly made him want to throw up.

Or maybe that was also the firsthand smoke.

As the red taillights glowed and the engine came to life, he cleared his throat. “I’m going to go home.”

He made the announcement to anybody who might be listening, and only because he didn’t want them flagging him as their next issue to deal with. Before there was any response, he closed his eyes, and took a number of deep breaths through his nose. Even with the wind blowing all kinds of fresh air down the alley, all he could smell was the blood—

With a jerk and a sizzle, he felt himself break apart into component molecules. As with so many of his transition’s changes, he was still getting used to dematerializing. He did not like any of the sensations, not the weird dislocation, not the tumbling flight, and definitely not the terror that he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back together again.

As with the other five times he’d done it, however, he did in fact re-corporealize himself, and fucking hell, you couldn’t beat the convenience. It was the work of a moment for him to go from down on Market Street to the woody clearing he’d been coming to on his electric bike for the past six months.

Much easier way to travel.

His senses took a second to come back online, and then he was smelling the pines, and listening to the creak of the branches as the wind whistled by, and tracking a startled deer as it bounced off through the snow drifts in quick retreat.

The Hudson River was mostly frozen, only patches in the ice revealing the sluggish current. Standing about fifty feet from the shore’s lip, he’d been to this exact spot in the woods so often, he could have drawn a detailed map of all the conifers, but as his transportation was different this time, he glanced around with fresh eyes. The city proper with its skyscrapers and twin bridges was just far away enough so that he could see the entire twinkling urban view, but he was definitely not in suburbia yet. He was also on municipal land, so trespassing wasn’t an issue. In the better weather, the running/biking trails had been busy with the health-conscious and the nature-loving, and he had to wonder whether he would still be doing this in the spring.

Probably not.

Before he stared across the waterway, he stomped in the snow, and then lifted one of his Converse to check the pack in the treads. The blizzard had dumped its load all over the city, although the tree canopy here had caught at least half of what had fallen.

As he looked up to the sky, he was surprised to see stars.

The storm’s retreat was fast and complete, the heavy clouds dragging off to the south and west, uncloaking the heavens on a hard cut as opposed to a gradual thinning.

Like a destructive guest who was finally leaving the house.

His gaze lowered and he regarded the opposite shore.

The modern house that commanded his attention, the one that he had been coming to see for the last six months, had been designed by its architect to take advantage of the peninsula it sat upon. The various levels were articulated in glass, and there was an understated elegance and luxury to the simplicity of the structure. Nothing showy. Nothing flashy. Nothing to get in the way of the views offered of the river and this forest across the way.

Why his sister had decided to move into the house was a mystery, his carefully crafted plans involving Theotore clearly a non-starter. He wanted answers.

All he had were these clandestine spy sessions. It was too dangerous to reach out to her directly—

As if he had called her name, Carmen walked into view, passing through the living room with its sleek furniture and low lighting. She was slender as ever, and wearing a pink suit with a slim skirt and fitted jacket. Chanel, still.

Chanel, always.

No males in the house. Unless they were uniformed doggen. And she seemed lonely, but maybe he was reading into that because he was lonely—

Instantly, he was back in the passageway downtown, smelling the blood, seeing that slit throat… holding the dying male in his lap. The real teeth of the bargain he’d made with the enemy locked on to his own neck, and he bent over and propped himself on his knees to keep breathing.

He wasn’t sure whether he was going to vomit or pass out.

As a logjam of bile coming up and ragged inhales going down crowded his windpipe, he heard a car approaching. Wrenching around, he wondered who the hell would be driving in these woods, especially with all the new snow?

At least he knew it wasn’t going to be his lesser contact. They always met—

What if it was the Brotherhood? What if they somehow had put a tracer on him?

Jacking to attention, he grabbed his phone to panic-check that his location was still off. Except then he realized that was stupid. One, he hadn’t changed anything, and two, the Brothers wouldn’t be coming for him in a vehicle. Somebody would rematerialize right behind him.

And probably slit his own throat.

He narrowed his eyes. No headlights or taillights. Big engine. Creeping at an idle down the widest running path.

Whoever it was… was coming right to the clearing he was standing in.

And didn’t that piss him the hell off. This was his secret place.

Stepping back into the tree line, he hid behind some boughs. He was wearing gray, which was fairly good camo with all the snow. Not great, but not bad. And he should probably dematerialize out of here, but an unfamiliar territoriality kept him rooted. He felt… ready to fight whoever this was, just because they dared disturb him.

God, he did not understand his response. It was like someone else was under his skin and in his brain, and he had a feeling it was hormones kicking in after his change.

Or maybe the stress he was under was really getting to him?

The vehicle stopped about twenty feet from where he was, and he went stem-to-stern on the thing. It was a big-ass, blacked-out Ford truck with a dual cab and tires that had the clearance of a two-story house. The engine was cut without any brake lights flashing red, and the driver’s-side door opened. As he immediately tested the air for scents because he was downwind, the fresh blood registered so hard and fast, he recoiled with a jerk.

Human. Male. And there was a lot of it.

What the hell was up with this night, he thought.

No surprise, the guy who came around the front of the truck was dressed for nefarious stuff. Black clothes, a black parka with the hood up, black gloves—

“See, I told you.”

Allhan frowned. That was a woman’s voice. Low and quiet, but not soft. No, that tone and cadence were definitely not “soft.”

The passenger-side door was opened. “We had a nice, safe ride, didn’t we. Kept the speed limit the whole time, like the little law abider I am.”

It was at that point that another scent hit him, one that was far more subtle: incense and flowers—and something that had to be a drug because his entire body responded in a rush of heat and a burst of awareness.

Closing his eyes, he felt cheated as he had to exhale just so he could draw more of her inside of him.

Okay, whoever that was… was not a human.

The sound of a body hitting the snowy ground as deadweight popped his lids back open, but he didn’t dwell on the man who lay face-up and motionless. Instead, he desperately tried to pull details on the female out of the darkness, anything about whatever was under that hooded parka.

Nothing. He got nothing. Not even a strand of errant hair wicking on the wind.

Without any conscious thought, he started walking forward. There was no deciding to step out of the trees. No consideration that maybe checking in on this situation might not be a good idea. No assessment as to whether his own life of chaos had room for anybody else’s drama.

Nope. His feet just got with the program like she was calling his name even though she didn’t know he was there. And he was so caught up in her scent and her voice that he did nothing to hide his approach as he—

Click.

The unmistakable sound of an old-fashioned revolver being cocked stopped him in his tracks, and he raised both his hands as if it were a stickup.

“You need any help with that?” he said into the cold breeze.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Standing with her feet planted in the snow, Denne held her favorite gun steady as she pointed the muzzle at the male figure in front of her. No scent to catch because the wind was at her back, but she had the sense that he was not human. Maybe it was the sheer size of him. He was taller than her by more than a head, and she was not small. He also had broad shoulders that tapered into a tight waist, and thick thighs that made him seem sturdy as the trees he’d come out of.

Clothes were nothing special, just jeans and a sweatshirt that were way too light to keep a human warm enough out here. No boots, either, to deal with the snow. But he didn’t seem cold.

And goddamn he was calm as he stared over at her.

Hair was dark and cut with no particular style, neither short nor long. Skin was pale, so were the eyes.

His face was… beautiful.

Such balanced features, the cheekbones prominent, those eyes set deeply under arching brows, the jaw a cut of bone that had an elegant power to it. Without meaning to, she found herself zeroing in on the jugular vein that ran up the side of his exposed throat. Then she looked at his lips. They were fuller on the bottom, and didn’t that make her wonder things she had absolutely no reason to think about.

What was his scent like—

“This is none of your business,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes, I know. But maybe you want some help?”

“I don’t, and you need to get the fuck out of here. I know how to use this gun.”

“Yes, you look like you do. For sure.”

And then he just stood there with his arms up some more, his eyes roaming around her face, not that he could see any of it. Gotta love a hoodie.

“Tick-tock, motherfucker,” she prompted. “Time to go—”

“What are you going to do with him? Just leave him here?”

Actually, that was the plan, not that it was any of this stranger’s concern. The news flash for the human community was easy: A two-bit “boss” playing on the fringes of the Caldwell underworld waking up dead in a stretch of woods where the body wasn’t going to be found until the spring trail runners start pounding the ground? Come on, that was a no-shit-Sherlock.

“Their kind doesn’t incinerate in the sun.” He put his palms out toward her and then lifted them up again. “I mean, you probably already know that. Right? Of course you do. I mean, you killed him so well. Good job.”

Blinking with disbelief, Denne almost lowered her weapon. Was this guy really giving her a gold star for murder?

And guess she was right that he was a vampire.

She shook herself back to attention. “I’m going to shoot you on the count of three. Either you dematerialize out of here, or I’m dropping two bodies in this clearing.”

“Who is he?” The male’s eyes shifted to the passenger side of her truck. “Lot of blood in your cab. Do you have access to a detailer?”

“What?” She cursed. “I mean—one.”

“I’m not sure if I have anybody I could recommend. I don’t have a car so I don’t have any reason to wash them. Inside or out—”

“Do you ever shut up?” She tilted her head. “Like, ever?”

Leave it alone, she told herself. You’ve already volunteered for one stranger’s set of problems tonight.

And she wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw blood on his jeans as well as that dark gray sweatshirt. But it could be a trick of the light, and what part of none-of-your-business did she need to learn for a second time?

The male laughed a little. “I don’t talk, really.”

“I find that very hard to believe.”

“No, it’s true.” He shrugged even though his hands were still in a this-is-a-stickup position. “Everybody’s always trying to get me to say something.”

“So you’re getting your quota out all at once here? With a gun pointed at your chest.”

“You’re aiming at my head now,” he corrected. “And I guess so—hey, were you careful about security monitoring? When you took him or killed him? The dark windows are great, but what about the circumstances of the abduction or murder? Do you want to tell me? No? Well, cameras are everywhere these days, and humans have eyes and can be complicating.”

What the hell was he saying—wait, what number was she on?

“Three,” she snapped.

He leaned in and dropped his voice, like he didn’t want to embarrass her in front of all the pine trees. “You’d just started counting. We’re on ‘two.’ ”

“Do you think I won’t shoot you.”

“Not at all.” His eyes went back to the dead guy on the ground and he nodded downward. Like in case she’d forgotten the corpse was two feet from them. “We have prima facie evidence you’re good with that kind of thing.”

Clearing her throat, she decided to be reasonable. “I don’t know what your deal is. But you need to get the fuck out of here—”

“Are you sure you scrubbed any and all possible footage? If you want to give me the location of the… incident, so to speak, I’d be happy to look into it—”

There was a sudden flare in the sky, so bright it was as if a strike of lightning had come out of nowhere. Or maybe a nuke had been dropped on the Financial District.

Denne tilted her head back to the shockingly clear, super starry sky that had been revealed by the blizzard’s abrupt departure. When she saw what was making the brilliant celestial light show, her heart dropped and she even rubbed her eyes just in case she was seeing things incorrectly.

Nope. Sure wasn’t.

Directly overhead, two brilliant lines of fire were streaking across the velvet heavens in a collision course, one from the east, one from the west. The shooting stars were so big, so brilliant, that they drowned out all of the other twinklers, and they lingered as if demanding she see the show for long enough so that she couldn’t deny it.

When the two opposing forces met, there was a blinding flare that made her eyes sting, and as the illumination faded, she looked at the male standing across from her.

“What time is it,” she asked in a dead voice.

He was immediately step-and-fetch-it with the answer, yanking out a phone. “Nine nineteen.”

Denne lowered the gun with a curse. For the last ten years, she’d known that this moment was coming, but it was too soon. Way too soon. Or at least it felt that way.

Then again, it could have been a hundred years from now and she would have still thought her curse was early on arrival.

“Are you all right?” the male asked.

As he took a step toward her, she lifted the gun back up.

And pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I’m coming, sister mine. J-just a moment.”

As Rhysallhan called out to the front of the mansion, he looked around the conservatory in a panic. Their father was alive, though barely so, things twitching in horrible ways, the male’s blood spilling from the death wound on the back of his head, but also from his broken nose and his gaping, gurgling mouth. God, the sounds were terrible, especially the uncoordinated, unsuccessful attempts at swallowing.

“—managed to get you a present, too! I cannot wait to show you!”

Carmen’s high heels started clipping across the foyer’s marble floor, and he blanched as she closed in. “Wait! Stay where you are.”

The delicate footfalls stopped. “Rhysallhan, what are you about.”

Their father’s unfocused eyes fluttered and then looked out toward her voice. That bloodied, lax mouth started to move, the chest inflating as if a deep breath was being drawn, as if Chritophe was about to yell for help—

Rhysallhan raised the candlestick over his shoulder and drove it down with so much force that when he struck their sire’s head, the skull structure caved in. Oh, fates, the sound. The dull thwack! carried a crunch with a sodden undertone that churned his stomach, and as he wheeled toward the conservatory’s double doors, he panicked about what might have carried through to the foyer.

“Just dropped a plant!” he called out as lightning flashed again and the lights flickered. “Sorry!”

Whatthefuckwashesaying.

“Are you rearranging things in there?” she asked crossly over the rumbling thunder. “You know Father doesn’t like the acoustics to be changed.”

“It’s dying.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, the plant… is dead.”

“What is going on in there—”

As those high heels started up again, he had a momentary lapse in cognition: No idea where he was. What he’d done. Why he had this screaming need to run over and shut those—

“Shut the doors,” he mumbled. “Shut the goddamn doors.”

He hustled forward, bursting through the frosted panels and closing them behind himself. While he did what he could to catch his breath, he prayed that the scent of all that blood was contained, but what could he do? Jumping out around the base of the staircase, he pinned a determined smile on his face.

“Hello, d-dearest! Whatever did you buy?”

As Carmen halted, he made a show of looking at the Saks Fifth Avenue bags dangling from her manicured hands. “I see you were able to get some shopping—”

One by one, the bags dropped to the floor and flopped over. “Rhysallhan… what have you done.”

“Oh, you know m-me.” He shrugged in what he hoped was a casual shoulder shift. “I’ve just been here all evening, working on the computer.”

“There is… blood all over your face, brother mine.”

For a moment, his mind froze anew. Then he wiped the sleeve of his blazer across his forehead and cheeks. As he dropped his arm, his fair-haired sister came into painfully clear focus. Carmen was willow thin in the manner of all aristocratic females, her first diet imposed before she’d even come close to her transition, her latest one some version of calorie restriction based on lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Dressed in a summer-weight Chanel suit of pink and cream, she had on a full-length Hermès raincoat in a coordinating shade, and her fragile ankles were like toothpicks beneath its damp, flared hem.

Absently, he noted that her coordinating Chanel bag was on a strap, which was the only reason it hadn’t fallen like the rest of what she’d been carrying.

And then a rush of humid, warm air gave him an excuse to look over her shoulder. “You didn’t shut things properly, sister. Why must I always tell you to close the front entry properly.”

He marched across the distance and did the duty. As he turned around, Carmen was swaying on her heels like the wind was still coming into the mansion.

“Why is there blood… on your hands,” she said hoarsely.

Rhysallhan lifted his palms and had the dissociative thought that the red stain was only on his right one. So perhaps that was just half as bad? As he took out his pocket square and scrubbed the silk over his palm, he toyed with a variety of lies: A break-in. An accident. A suicide he’d walked in on.

None of this was part of his careful preparations.

He chose door number two: “There’s been a terrible accident—”

“What did you do, brother mine.” When he didn’t reply, her voice rose into hysteria. “What did you do!”

The shrill syllables echoed upward, echoed all around. To the point where he wondered if the whole of Caldwell heard them.

Before she could do something rash, he caught her arm. “Do not go back to the conservatory.”

Her eyes searched his face desperately, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Who… why…”

All he could do was shake his head.

“Did you kill him?” she breathed. “Did you…?”

With a moan of fear, she began to yank against his hold, her smooth blond hair jostling out of its precisely arranged waves. “Let me go! Let me go—”

“Carmen—”

With a vicious yank, she broke away and ran for the conservatory, following the bloody footprints he’d been unaware of having left on the glossy marble. Except she couldn’t see the body. She’d already been through too much.

Rhysallhan bolted for the frosted doors. Even though pretrans couldn’t dematerialize, between one blink and the next, he traveled faster than she did, and barred her way.

“No,” he said over another rumble of thunder.

She opened her mouth like she intended to argue with him. Then shut it. “You… can’t do this to us. To our bloodline. You can’t… you surely didn’t…”

“I had no choice.” He searched her pale face. “After everything he did to you—”

“I don’t care about mating Theothore—”

“Before that. What our sire did to you… before that.”

With a shudder of horror, she put her hands in front of her as if to ward off blows and started scrambling backwards. When she hit the shopping bags, she tripped her way through them, and then didn’t seem to know which way to go. Out the front door or to the stairs.

She chose the stairs, and fell up the first four steps.

As her ankles buckled beneath her, she stripped the raincoat from her fragile shoulders, and clawed her ascent on all fours, grabbing at the nap of the golden runner like it was a rope she was pulling herself on. Her breathing was punctuated by screams on every exhale, and with a numbing shock of his own, he could only watch her struggle—

One of those strappy Louboutins popped off and tumbled in a bumping descent. Red sole. Silver straps. Red sole. Silver straps…

Until it stopped right in front of him.

Carmen hit the second story like he was in pursuit with a weapon, and for a featherweight female, her footfalls pounded down the hall. Moments later, her door slammed shut, and he swore he could hear her throw the bolting lock.

Meanwhile, his heart thundered as loud as her retreat had been.

Rhysallhan picked up the stiletto. As he turned it over and regarded the brand’s signature sole color, he looked to the conservatory.

His sister might be uneducated in a formal fashion—outside of setting the perfect table for every meal there was and the expectations of arranged matings within their class—but she wasn’t stupid and vampires had ways of dealing with this. If she called the emergency services line for the species… or, worse, the Black Dagger Brotherhood? Then he was in even more difficulty than he currently—

Knock…

Knock…

Knock.

Rhysallhan’s head owl’d around to the front door just as the great brass knob turned, the mechanism clicked, and the heavy panels his sister hadn’t shut properly before her life broke apart opened again. The thunder and lightning that poured into the foyer were right out of a horror movie, and so was the slow motion of the swing-wide—

The lights went off as if the entire estate had been unplugged.

As another blast of hot, humid wind barreled in, a streak of lightning illuminated the outline of a tall figure standing in the doorway. Rhysallhan knew immediately that the enemy who had been summoned by their sire had arrived, and that his only chance to survive the next couple of seconds was to take control.

“My father is dead.” He made sure each one of the words was clear and succinct. “You will deal with me now.”

CHAPTER NINE

E = mc².

Energy equals mass times acceleration. It was the simplest of Einstein’s equations, and one Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, was not just familiar with in a scientific sense. He lived the shit up close and personal from time to time.

Like, for example, if you put 1,500 pounds of vampire dumbass in a Suburban, took that party onto a highway in the middle of a blizzard, and ran the bitch into the posterior of one of Caldwell’s big-as-a-house municipal plows?

You got all kinds of contusions, bruises, and broken things. Especially if a foreign body four times the size of a beer keg busted through the front windshield.

Noses… for example. Just as a hypothetical.

Now, given that V was the smarty-pants of the Brotherhood, he had a corollary skill that helped in the aftermath of these kinds of vehicular meet-and-greets. He was professionally trained as a paramedic, and that meant over the course of the last hundred years or so, he had attended… fuck, he didn’t know how many patients in all kinds of tits-up situations. Compound fractures? Been there. Pleural effusions? Done that. Stab wounds, gunshots, blunt force trauma. The aforementioned contusions, bruises, concussions, and broken bones.

The one thing he could not deal with? On any goddamn level at all?

“Here, let’s get you on the bed.”

Annnnnnnnnnnd there it was. The well-meaning, perfectly appropriate, royal-we offer to help the patient to the horizontal.

Bonus if it came with a sympathetic smile.

“I’m fine,” he gritted out.

Dr. Jane Whitcomb, trauma surgeon extraordinaire, all-around female of worth, and the only shellan he would ever have, paid absolutely no attention to the brush-off. She kept her arm around his waist to make sure his leaning-tower-of-hellren stayed right where it was against her, their forward motion molasses slow because of his limping.

Which was nothing compared to the pounding pain of his schnoz.

The closer they got to their mated bed, the crankier he became, so he kept his mouth shut. Better to save his energy for when they argued about her helping him to light up a hand-rolled. That was going to be loads of fun.

“Here we go,” she murmured.

“I can do this by myself,” he countered in his very best toddler.

“I know you can, but you’re a fall risk and I’ve already reset your nose once tonight. Let’s at least give it twenty-four hours before we get to relive that marital moment.”

V glanced over at her. Her short blond hair was a mess, there was blood on her blue scrubs, and the mismatched Crocs on her feet made him smile a little even though he was not a smiler and his face was so fucked up it hurt to move his lips. Whether in her ghostly form or the corporeal one, Jane was always by his side, and as usual, she was right. His I-am-an-island bullshit went out the window as they arrived at the mattress and the fucking thing looked tall as Everest. Still, because he was who he was, he had to back her off and attempt to get his knee up on his own. He was barely halfway to the duvet when the world went on a spin—

“I got you,” she said calmly as she caught his lurch with a grunt.

And it was true. Jane grabbed him and pulled back before he fell forward face-first onto the pillows—which would have been like landing on a bomb. Yes, there was the whole Rudolph-the-fucked-nosed-vampire shit, but he also had a concussion, and there was something going on with his sternum that he was refusing to tell anybody about.

Okay, fine, the thing was probably cracked thanks to the seatbelt, but honestly, did it matter? He’d had plenty of broken ribs and it wasn’t like he was taking any deep breaths for the foreseeable future.

“Let’s try this again.” His shellan braced her feet and shifted him like he was a duffle bag full of bowling balls. “Nice… and easy…”

More grunting for her, and wasn’t that a turn-on. Not that he could do anything about that. For the moment.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” he exhaled as he heaved his deadweight body up and over.

As he stretched out, pain played Ping-Pong with every square inch of him, and his brain, that singular vital organ that he considered his most important asset, completely shorted out and took everything with it: Eyesight. Hearing. Thought process.

He was only dimly aware of Jane arranging his limbs in a vaguely Vitruvian fashion so at least he didn’t cut off circulation to any appendages. And then there was a period of time that could have been a minute and a half, or maybe was a month… during which he blinked even though he was blinded to his bedroom and breathed even though his lungs were on fire.

The latter being a nice trick—

The urge to throw up brought him back from whatever parallel dimension he’d been sucked into, and wasn’t that a twist of the nut. You’d think something pleasant might’ve grounded him, like the erection that had sprung up at the sounds his mate made while she was muscling him around. But noooooooooooooo, this was a fucking Wednesday night in Caldwell, New York, which meant that, yes, they’d rear-ended a municipal fucking snowplow in the middle of a fucking blizzard on the fucking Northway. And why had they been in the Suburban instead of safely dematerializing to the Audience House for the night? Because Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, the great Blind King, had been sporting a head-fuck-and-a-half and hadn’t been able to get to work the good ol’-fashioned ghost way.

Clusterfuck all the way around.

So yeah, it checked out that emetic urgency was what brought him around. But he wasn’t going to let his epiglottis get him down. He breathed in through his nose and out his mouth, in through his nose… out of his mouth…

Jane gently sat beside him, the mattress barely tilting. “Next time you rear-end something, let’s try and pick a vehicle that doesn’t have a house-sized appendage hanging off its back bumper. Who knew salt boxes were such a thing.”

Oh, okay. See, that was helpful. He was having trouble remembering anything other than the CliffsNotes version of events, and courtesy of “salt box” he was now recollecting with good, specific detail being behind the wheel of the SUV with Tohr in shotgun. Rhage and Butch had been in the back-back. And Wrath had been in the middle-left captain’s chair like a grenade about to go off.

Talk about rank. The last purebred vampire on the planet had been in a rare mood this evening, and the entire Brotherhood knew why. The guy’s issues with his Queen were of his own making, though, and frankly, they were all hoping the female finally got through to him.

No more field trips. Yes, him going to that traitor Whestmorel’s had meant they found the aristocrat who had been left behind for dead in that hidden room. But was the stress worth it? Considering that the last time the King had gone anywhere other than the Audience House had ushered in thirty years of everybody thinking that Wrath had been blown apart by the Lessening Society?

The answer was no.

Make that fuck no.

“Tohr… still okay?” V said roughly. What he really wanted to know was if the brother was still alive, but he couldn’t get that out.

Not unless he wanted to stay on the vomi-train.

“Yup. He’s getting settled in his own bed next door.”

“Autumn with him?” Damn, it was hard to talk with the rib thing. “Case he needs… anything.”

“Absolutely. She’s not leaving his side.”

Of course she was. Tohr’s shellan was a female of worth. Stupid fucking question.

“Should you be with him, too?”

“I’m staying with you. Anything goes wrong, I just walk right over.”

Weird space to be in, true? He was feeling selfish for wanting to keep Jane with him. On the other hand, she was his mate, so where else should she be, barring some emergency situation.

“No, you can’t have a cigarette.” As he glared at his shellan, she shook her head. “And you can stop right now trying to get me to go over there so you can sneak one.”

“I’m worried about Tohr.”

“I know you are. And you will also not be smoking right now.”

She was probably right—not in terms of his overall health and recovery, as unlike with humans, tobacco didn’t do shit to vampires. The real issue was that he doubted he could hold a hand-rolled, even between his teeth, and lighting himself on fire was not the chaser anybody needed tonight.

Jane leaned down and brushed his hair back. As her fingertips lingered on his temple and traced the tattoos there, he knew what she wanted to ask. Also knew she would never put voice to it all.

Because she was scared of his answer.

“No,” he said. “No dreams about any of this from tonight.”

Her eyes closed and she exhaled in a relief he shared. Those warnings in the Old Language that had been inked into his face centuries ago were a STOP sign only to others. They didn’t do shit to keep the visions about the death away from him.

“Good,” his mate murmured.

“Yeah.”

Except they would come to him again at some point. They always did. Sooner or later, he would get more of them, the channel opening and dumping nightmarish images into his mind about the ones he loved.

And people wondered why he didn’t bother getting attached unless he couldn’t avoid it.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Jane whispered.

“I made it.” He reached out for her, and stopped before his gloved hand made contact. “So did Tohr. That’s all that matters.”

Bullshit it was. But sometimes you said things because the truth was like throwing a drowning person a rock.

“At least we’re done with tonight and Allhan’s okay,” she said.

Vishous shook his head even though it made his skull pound. He was not going into the Allhan thing right now. How the pair of them had ended up with that kid he had no idea. They’d agreed years ago they were never having young, and everything had been wine-and-roses, fine-and-dandy for so long. Yet now here they were, somehow ending up with a male whose eating habits, sleep schedule, and very respiration were of paralytic concern.

This was exactly what he’d never been looking for. Allhan was inexorable, though, appearing on the front stoop at Safe Place as an orphan abandoned, his parents having fucked him off, no money or clothes to his name—all of which would have been unfortunate, but not unusual and none of V’s fucking problem. Except then the kid had proven to have a knack for computing, and that knack had been the gateway to a truly brilliant mind for programming and data analysis.

There were things Allhan could do faster and better than even Vishous.

And when was the last time that had happened.

“As long as Allhan and you are all right,” Jane concluded, “I can deal with almost anything.”

V had to agree with her, and hated it. He really did. He already had enough in his life to worry about, and adding some kid had never been on his list of things to do. But here he was. Here they were—

Knocking sounded out from the living area.

“Come on in,” Jane yelled. Then, in a quieter voice, “Beth and Wrath want to see you.”

“Gimme a hand-rolled,” he hissed. “Right now—”

“We’re down here,” she spoke toward the hall. “My patient is so happy you’re here!”

“The fuck I am.” He glanced toward the open door, making sure he kept shit quiet. “And I want a cigarette if I have to deal with the pair of—”

Jane dropped her volume, too. “No cigarette, and they won’t stay long—”

“They’re fucking fighting over the Whestmorel thing—”

“Shh—”

Rhage appeared at the head of the hallway, in the midst of unwrapping a fresh grape Tootsie Pop. “Annnnnd he’s cheerful as a Christmas card.”

Unlike the people in the front of the Suburban, everybody else had been unscathed, so Hollywood’s golden beauty and glowing, Bahamas-blue eyes were CoverGirl perfect. But he was not his usual happy-go-lucky self. Underneath the gloss and charm, the brother was locked in on V like he needed the reassurance that everything was, in fact, all right.

V exhaled, thinking it was hard to stay annoyed by the guy, it really was. “I’m fine, true.”

“That why there’s a bandage holding your brains in?” the brother said around the lollipop.

Ah, shit, he had to smile a little again. “Fuck off, Hollywood.”

The great Blind King stepped into the bedroom, taking up most of the space and all of the air, and even though V was functioning way below half-mast, he ran his eyes over the vampire like he was checking for stains on a pair of white kicks. Wrath looked perfectly healthy, thank fuck, his waist-length black hair falling around his shoulders and adding to his bulk, his powerful legs planted into shitkickers, those black wraparounds making him seem like someone about to break into a bank using somebody else’s face.

“How we doin’?” the male asked.

Behind him, Beth, the Queen, stared over in the direction of the bed, and going by how pale she went, V figured he was looking worse than he felt. Or maybe he wasn’t a good judge of how he was actually feeling.

Oh, and hey, remember how pain always got him off? Not to- night.

“Welcome,” Jane said, without looking away from him. “Don’t you think he looks good.”

“Better’n Tohr,” Wrath remarked as he came across.

“You’re blind,” V pointed out. “So I know you’re lying.”

“Details, details.”

As Wrath put his hand forward, V clapped his palm against his King’s, and there was a moment where all kinds of things were said without words: I’m glad you’re all right, my brother. Man, that was another close call. When is this shit ever going to end.

After that, some kind of conversation happened. He didn’t track a lot of it. He was too busy measuring his shellan as she and Beth stood off to the side and talked between themselves. Both females were tense and unhappy, and he hated to see it. Knew also that the Brotherhood was the cause.

Well, the war and the aristocracy. But still.

The royal couple left a little while later—and took Hollywood with them, thank God. Yeah, he was glad his brother had bothered to stop by, but he didn’t have the strength for the banter right now.

“I’m okay, though,” he said. “For real.”

Who exactly was he talking to? Himself? His Jane? The four walls and a ceiling they were in?

His shellan returned to the bed. For a moment, she regarded him in that way medical professionals did, a kind of gut-check monitoring that had nothing to do with electrodes or scans or ultrasounds or stethoscopes, and everything to do with decades and decades of dealing with injured people.

“We’re just going to put this all behind us,” she said finally. “Tonight was a shit show, but it’s over now—”

The sound of a cell phone vibrating brought their attention to the bureau across the bedroom. When there was a beat of quiet and then the thing immediately danced again, they both cursed.

As a third round started up, Jane went to her Samsung. As she entered the date they first met to unlock the unit, she put the call on speakerphone.

“What’s up,” she answered briskly.

“Oh, nothing much,” a male voice said. “Just an update on the Allhan situation.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Her forest-green eyes shot over to him. “What Allhan situation—”

V sat up so fast he started to dry-heave. “What the fuck’s going on—”

They talked over each other as she strode back to him, and the voice coming out of the phone was one that V recognized—yet his mind couldn’t place it. And wasn’t that more good news about his injuries.

“Well,” the male continued, “the bodies have been removed from the scene, and now a bunch of us are going out to find the two who were abducted—”

V cut through the word salad he wasn’t tracking. “Is Allhan alive?”

There was a pause of confusion. “Um, yes?”

“Is he okay?”

“No offense, I think you’d be a better judge of that? I mean, he was pretty composed when we showed up in the alley, but shock’ll do that to a male. Haven’t you been getting the texts?”

“Would I be asking these fucking questions if I’d—”

Jane cut in smoothly. “No, we haven’t. We’ve been dealing with a situation on our end.”

“Okay, well, there was a lesser attack downtown, outside of Bathe. Allhan found the bodies.”

Closing his eyes, V thought it was funny how he still didn’t know who the fuck was talking. The cadence and tone registered as very familiar, but he couldn’t have identified who’d called if there was a gun to his head. But at least he could translate the words.

And Allhan was alive.

Vishous shuffled his legs so they hung off the mattress and Jane didn’t stop him.

Why the hell hadn’t Al called home?

“Where’s my phone,” he asked her.

“Your jacket.” She cursed. “Which is in the mobile surgery unit along with the clothes we cut off you.”

Fuck the phone, then. “Where’s he now?” he asked the caller.

There was another pause. And then the mystery male said, “He told us he was going home when he left? I thought… he was with you.”

CHAPTER TEN

Down on the shores of the Hudson River, in the clearing in the public forest, the bullet from the female’s old-fashioned gun sailed by Allhan’s left ear close enough to clip it. And as a little stinging sensation and a warm, wet feeling registered on the side of his neck, he smiled even though she still had the weapon up and pointed at him.

And undoubtedly had another bullet in that chamber.

Across the snowy ground, his shooter was shaking her head. “Are you fucking crazy?”

Allhan glanced down at himself as he considered the question. Shifted his weight back and forth a couple of times. Shrugged.

“No? At least, I… I don’t think I’m crazy.” He frowned. “Would I know, though? I’m not sure whether you should ask a person if they’re insane. There’s an inherent conflict of interest in any response that comes back at you, and a high potential for self-delusion, especially if it turns out they are.”

She blinked. “What… the fuck are you saying?”

Reaching up, he ran his fingers over his ear and then checked to see how much blood was on them. Not a lot. “Is this what it feels like to get a piercing? I don’t have any piercings. No tattoos, either. But then I don’t like needles. I’m also just through my transition so I wouldn’t have gotten them before that anyway. Do you have pierced ears?”

The gun slowly lowered. “I don’t know.”

“Whether you’ve had your ears done?”

“No. I’ve never been shot in the lobe before so I can’t make the comparison.”

“So you do have pierced ears—”

“Can you… can you stop talking—”

“You have incredibly good aim.” He tilted his head. “Unless you were going for my frontal lobe instead of my earlobe. In which case, close, but no cigar.” He winced at the reference, thinking back to the males and where they’d been headed. “And yeah, sure. I can be quiet. I usually am, actually.”

The female stared at him for a moment. “Are you okay?”

Sadness swamped his fascination with her, sinking him back down into his reality. “Do you want the real answer to that.”

As he felt her eyes on him, he wanted her to take that hood down.

“You know… even though I shouldn’t, I think I do,” she muttered.

“Bad night,” he whispered roughly. “Very bad. You shooting me is the least of it, which is saying something.”

When she exhaled, her breath drifted toward him and he tried to be surreptitious as he inhaled it. When his whole body flushed, he knew it was because a little of her was inside of him.

“Why are you looking at me like that,” she said.

“I can’t see your face.” He made a circle around his own head. “On account of the hood.”

When she didn’t move or reply, he prompted, “How am I looking at you?”

“As if you know me.”

“That’s not quite it, actually.” His voice deepened. “It’s more that I feel like… I found you.”

From out of nowhere, a rhythmic sound vibrated through the night, and they both turned toward the view of the skyscrapers and looked up. Off to the south, a helicopter approached at a fast clip, its spotlight beaming down and sweeping from side to side over the snowed-up landscape.

“Any chance that’s for you?” he asked.

“No. None.”

“Well, it’s heading right for us. Might be a good idea to back into the trees. Maybe they’re just riding the course of the river, but what if you were not quite as discreet as you think you were. I’m telling you, security cameras are everywhere—”

“Are you sure you don’t always talk this much?”

“I’m an introvert. I swear.”

He measured the copter’s speed and direction. It was still at least a half mile off, and maybe it would divert to follow the road proper.

“Are you sure you know the definition of that word?” she demanded.

“Oh, Princess Bride reference. An oldie, but a goodie.” He nodded over his shoulder at the tree line. “I really think we need to go in there. I’d take your arm, but you still have a gun, and I haven’t heard anything like ‘Oh, Allhan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.’ ”

“You are not an introvert.”

“I truly am. Quick question, did you really mean to shoot my ear—”

“Why the hell are you making an exception for me.”

Allhan glanced at the human who was lying in the snow like a slab of beef, his eyes open, his mouth lax. If it weren’t for the knife sticking out of his gut and all the blood in his lap, you might have been fooled that he was just really fucking drunk.

“I wouldn’t try to drive away.” Allhan went over and shut the truck up with his Converse. “Your best bet is to dematerialize out of here and leave your vehicle—I’m assuming that you’ve given a false address for the registration? If you didn’t, I could reset it if we had more time, but we don’t—”

He stopped. “Okay, now, why are you looking at me like that?”

“You can’t see my face. How do you know I’m looking at you.”

There was a long pause, and he played some kind of fantasy that the female was as taken with him as he was with her. Except he knew that wasn’t the case. And even if it was, he was the last person anybody should have anything to do with.

“You need to get out of here,” she shouted over the growing din.

“So do you.”

“Just leave—”

“You first—”

“Go! Goddamn you!”

With a curse, she jammed her gun into her parka, jumped at him, and grabbed the front of his hoodie in two strong fists. On a coordinated jerk, she swung him around and punched his chest. Just as he started paddling to keep his balance and failing, the beam from the helicopter flashed across the clearing, right where he’d been standing—

As he landed flat on his back in the snow, the female leaped out of the way of the light with a lithe surge, that brilliant flare clipping the heel of her black boot as she flew parallel to the snowy ground.

Time slowed to a halt as he suddenly wasn’t thinking about the inconvenience of humans showing up, as always, where you didn’t want them. Nope, he was thinking about how the female was coming at him, and it was easy to mentally protractor where her flight path was going to take her.

His own body.

God… he fucking loved math.

And the female’s impact on him was a branding, the imprint of her breasts against his chest and her leg falling between his thighs something he was never going to forget.

In response? A beast woke up inside of him. Sexual need exploded to life in his veins, his muscles, his very blood.

He needed to be inside of her. Now.

And he needed to come. So he could mark her.

Now.

The female lifted her head. In the darkness and with that hood, he couldn’t read her expression, but the change in her scent told him everything he had to know. She felt it, too. She wanted him… too.

At the front of his hips, a thickening gathered, his first erection ever preparing him—preparing them—for what this lick of electric promise inevitably led to. And even though he had absolutely no fucking idea what he was doing, he reached up and pulled the hood that covered her head back.

Allhan sucked in a breath. “You are… beautiful.”

Her black hair was plaited tightly in a series of braids and then let loose to flow around in a glorious profusion of curls. With high cheekbones and eyes set with a tilt at the far corners, her dark face was utterly arresting, the kind of thing that he knew he could look at again and again and always find something new.

And then he focused on her mouth. As he did, her lips parted, like she was imagining them kissing.

That was when a pale green glow flared.

Her eyes changed color—

“—told you we shouldn’ta broke into no bank—”

“Fuck you, Charlie! You fucked us by opening that fucking door—”

As the copter panned around, two human men broke out of the trees across the clearing and stopped short in front of the truck. They were both dressed in black and had balaclavas down over their faces. With black backpacks strapped on, they seemed like they were trying to be professional criminals. Except if they’d known what they were doing, they would have gone with white camo for clothing and not been arguing during their escape.

“What is that,” Not Charlie said through heaving breaths.

“A truck, you fucking idiot.” Except Charlie also seemed surprised. As he outed a gun, he lowered his voice. “Check for keys.”

The pair split apart and set on the Ford like the scavengers they were—

“Holy… shit.” Not Charlie jumped back as he saw the corpse in the snow. Then he looked up to the sky. “Maybe the copter ain’t for us.”

“What are you talking—” Charlie jogged around. “What the fuck is that.”

“It’s a dead guy.”

“No shit.” Charlie punched his partner-in-crime’s shoulder and stared down. “Check him for the keys.”

“He’s, like, super dead. I’m not touchin’ him.”

“Maybe they’re in the ignition.”

Not Charlie doubled back and got behind the wheel. A moment later, that big head engine woke up once more, but now the lights came on at all four corners of the vehicle, red in the back, yellow parkers in the front.

“It’s our lucky night! Fuck!”

“Not with you around,” Charlie muttered as he picked up the dead man’s wrist by the sleeve. “Oh, whatever. Wannabe Rolex. Fuck.”

With derision, he dropped that arm and wrenched open the passenger-side door. Just as he planted a foot on the running board, he recoiled.

“Blood! Goddamn, I ain’t sittin’ there.”

He moved to the backseat, got in, and then it was all about the combustible engine, that horsepower whipped hard in reverse, the knobby tire treads grabbing at the snowpack and chewing hard. Unfortunately, Not Charlie couldn’t control the power under that hood. A miscalculation slammed the ass end into a pine tree with a crunching metal sound.

“Jesus Christ,” the female muttered in a whisper. “They’re killing me over here.”

But she was stuck. The helicopter was returning, and undoubtedly it had all kinds of surveillance cameras happening. If she went out there, things could get dicey.

Dicey-er.

Meanwhile, forward gear entered the chat for about thirty feet, and all the while, in the glow of the dashboard, the humans were yelling at each other again. This time Not Charlie got the reversing right. The truck sucked back into the trees like a grappling hook had been latched on to whatever was left of the rear bumper.

“Idiots,” she hissed. “They need to turn the running lights off.”

Overhead, the helicopter made an instant recalibration, locking in on the vehicle’s swiveling, madcap retreat and following.

As the sounds and chaos dimmed, the ringing silence in the forest was broken only by branches and boughs of the tree that had been hit falling to the ground.

Allhan refocused on the female, and decided he could happily spend the rest of his miserable life being under her.

She looked back down at him.

The moment lasted a heartbeat. Or maybe it was twelve centuries—

With a curse, she flipped herself up off him, and as she landed on both feet like a cat, he thought about the way she’d sprung forward, so sure of where every molecule in her body was, so confident in how she moved. The athleticism was something to envy. Before his transition, he had been all twigs and matchsticks. Now he was a bag of bolts.

Not much improvement.

Dusting herself off, she walked over to the ruined pine tree and flubbed her parka’s hood to get the load of snow that had collected in it away from the back of her neck.

“Goddamn it,” she spat as she glared at the broken branches and the scar in the trunk.

Allhan sat up and went to cross his legs under his seat, a position that had always been his go-to. Not happening. For one, his thighs had muscle now. For another, the arousal that was knocking on the front door of his jeans got pinched so badly, he had to lock his teeth.

As she went over to the dead guy, he grimaced and shoved things around as best he could without jamming a hand into his pants. When he got nowhere, he decided vertical was the better plan.

Maybe his junk would settle back into place on its own.

With a grunt, he managed to get his feet under him, and he was still shocked at how far up he went as he straightened himself to his full height. His theory about a spontaneous repositioning of his erection courtesy of the vertical proved a no-go and he turned away to give her his back. Jamming his hand into his waistband, he sucked in a shocked breath. He hadn’t expected the shaft of pleasure that went through him as he shoved and yanked.

So this was why people jerked off, he thought as he turned around again.

“I really loved that truck,” she said with a kind of defeat.

“I can help find you another one. There are all kinds of government seizure websites I can search where you can get vehicles for wholesale or under. Of course, you have more control over options if you order one from a dealership, but everybody wants to save money, right? And things can be complicated for the likes of us.” He stopped and held up his forefinger. “Although you would have to check to make sure no one smoked in it. We could also do the Manheim auctions? They’re for dealers only, but they have disclosures about the interiors. All I have to do is forge a dealership license and we can—”

“You never stop talking. Do you.”

Allhan blinked like the dumb fuck he was. “Oh, that’s not true. Honestly.” Then he frowned. “You know what… I don’t stutter around you.”

“Why am I the lucky one,” she muttered as she went over and knelt down by the corpse.

“I don’t know. Probably because my brain shorts whenever I…”

As he stopped babbling, the female rifled through the suit jacket, pulling out a wallet and a cell phone.

“Whenever you what.” Her eyes returned to Allhan. “Hello?”

“Whenever I look at you. My brain shorts out whenever I look at you. And that seems to kill the stutter.”

The female stilled. Then she shook her head. “I’m nothing special.”

As she surged back to her feet, he knew she was getting ready to dematerialize into the night.

“My name is Allhan. Did I tell you that?”

“I don’t want to know your name.”

“Well, I’m volunteering it.”

“And I don’t want your number.”

The perma-pit in his stomach, that hollow feeling he’d been living with for what felt like his entire life, doubled in size. Except then he reminded himself that they’d met over a corpse. This wasn’t a blind date that hadn’t worked out when she realized he was socially awkward and family-less.

And maybe kissed like a goldfish out of water.

Not that he would know.

Well aware their time was running out, he stuck his hand forward. “Nice to meet you…?”

The female came over and left the obvious opening hanging. “What are you doing in these woods?”

“Just out for a walk.”

Her eyes searched his face and he was pretty aware of what she saw in terms of features. Okay, sort of aware, given he was still getting used to what he looked like. And God, he really hoped she didn’t think he was ugly.

“Go home,” she said after a moment. “You don’t belong here.”

“Can I at least know your name?” He put up both palms. “Please. I won’t bother you, I promise.”

“There’s no reason you need to know it. We’re never seeing each other again.”

“I have a reason.”

“Why.”

He shrugged. “At least I’ll know who’s keeping me up all day.”

The wind came around, bringing her scent to his nose. As he breathed in deep, he wanted to say something that made her stay.

That was what was going through his mind as she disappeared right in front of him.

In the aftermath of the departure, Allhan stayed where he was for a while because he was soul-crushed for no good reason. Then he focused on the dead guy, and wanted to know the story behind it all. Not that he cared about the human, of course.

He wanted to know everything—hell, anything—about the female who’d just left.

As sirens flared in the distance, he glanced to the sound and saw a line of cop cars streaming down the highway like bees flushed from a nest. They were obviously going to make it out here, sooner rather than later.

Before Allhan dematerialized himself, he walked over to the body and took hold of the white plastic handle of the knife that stuck out of the man’s gut. Pausing, he had a romantic notion that her palm had gripped right where his was.

“Wow. Th-that’s macabre.”

Whatever, the best thing about internal thoughts was that nobody else knew them.

With a jerk, he pulled out the blade. If there was one thing he’d learned, you had to clean up after yourself. Very important. Sure, vampires left no fingerprints, but the Caldwell Police Department was a crafty bunch.

And things could be traced back to places that should just as well be left alone.

As he, too, left the scene, he was buoyed a little by the idea that he was taking care of her.

Even though she’d never know.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Royal Residence

Territory of the s’Hisbe

I Am rushed through the halls of the royal residence, his North Face parka clapping against him, the Dunkin’ bag in his hand rustling, the cardboard tray of two coffees on the verge of a tip-over disaster. Courtiers, servants, and advisors hustled out of his way, their solemn robes like flags falling to half-mast as they dodged and he weaved. What a mess. As Prince Consort, he was the third most powerful person in the s’Hisbe, so whatever he did was considered noteworthy and important.

Third behind his shellan, the Queen Catra, and his daughter, Dennesha, the Princess and heir to the throne.

Shit, he should slow down. Act normal. He didn’t want prying eyes to get the gossip wheel spinning again.

Like it ever stopped.

When he got to the unremarkable entrance to the Constellation Room, he skidded to a halt at the black glass doors and had to catch his breath for a sec. Goddamn, his heart was thundering and not from the exercise.

Two falling stars. At precisely 9:19 p.m. in the northern sky. One from the east, one from the west, with the intersection directly over the Territory.

Assuming Catra was where she started every night these days, she had to have seen the light show.

He was still panting like a dog when he knocked three times in quick succession and then opened one of the heavy, gleaming doors into darkness.

The enormous glass dome that arched overhead was constructed of thermopanes set in titanium frames that were so thin they all but disappeared. With no lights on and the floor made of black marble, the top of the snow globe served up a stunning view of the starry heavens. Not that he saw anything of the galactic display.

His eyes locked on the sole figure inside the most sacred space within the s’Hisbe.

Her Serene Highness Catra vin SuLaneh etl MuLanen deH FonLerahn, Queen of the Shadows, was cross-legged in the middle of the white circle that marked the center of the circular floor and the apex of the dome. Unlike him, she was dressed in a golden robe that spilled out all around her, falling from her shoulders into a profusion of shimmering folds. Her black hair was braided tightly around her head, the bottom lengths left free to cascade down to her waist in waves, and her beautiful dark face was clear of any makeup. No jewels sparkled from her earlobes, her throat, or wrists or fingers, and she was shoeless.

For a moment, his breath caught, even with all the running he’d done. His shellan still managed to stop him in his tracks, her loveliness so much deeper than the surface stuff.

She was his heart and his soul.

“Hey,” he said as he softly closed the door.

The hiccup and sniffle that came back at him got his feet walking, and as he strode across the distance, the fact that he was leaving wet footprints, that he wasn’t in a ceremonial robe, that he was coming up to the Queen herself from behind, were breaches in protocol that would have gotten anyone else in deep shit. And certainly, if anybody else had been here, he would have changed his approach, at least.

When they were alone, however, she wasn’t the crown she wore. And he wasn’t third in line for anything. They were partners.

“Hi,” she said as she looked up at him helplessly.

“Hey.”

Tears trembled on her lashes, and with shaking hands, she scrubbed them off. “iAm, what are we going to do.”

He knelt next to her, put the coffees down, and opened the orange and white bag. “We’re going to split a cruller. That’s what we’re going to do.”

She burst out a sniffy laugh as he offered her the treat.

“Baked fresh,” he told her. “And I got your coffee just the way you like it. Large with two sugars.”

Catra took the twisted donut and regarded it as one would a flower. “These are gorgeous.”

“Yup, and so is the coffee.” He waited until she savored a bite and then he poked a hole for drinking in her plastic lid. “Here ya go. To wash it down.”

Her eyes teared up again. “Why are you like this?”

iAm fell back on his ass and started in on his own coffee, which was black, no sugar. The first sip went down the back of his throat like a dream, and as the warmth hit his gut, he was reminded that the simple pleasures were better than any luxury.

“Like what?” he prompted.

His beloved took another bite of the cruller and then passed the airy, frosted donut over to him. “This.”

“Well, you mated me for a reason, didn’t you?”

“I mated you for all kinds of reasons.” There was a hiss as she took a sip, and then an mmmmm. “I just don’t know why you put up with… this.”

She plucked the golden robe like it irritated her.

“Oh, my fate hasn’t sucked.” As he listened to his own voice echo around, he reflected on the number of times the pair of them had sat here and talked about things. “I got to mate the most beautiful female I’ve ever seen—have I mentioned she’s smart and kind? Sexy as hell, too—not that we have to go too far into that. I wouldn’t want my base desires to shock your ladyship.”

She laughed softly. “You make it sound like we were a Hinge date that miraculously went long-term. As opposed to the two of us meeting as part of a palace overthrow and somehow falling in love even though your brother was the one we all thought I was supposed to end up with.”

“Details, details,” he murmured.

Ducking his eyes, he thought of Trez with a shot of raw sorrow. What a destiny his brother had had, losing his Selena to that dreadful disease. Love had found the male again a while later, and it wasn’t really a surprise that he’d eventually left Caldwell with his shellan, Therese. They were out west, living a life free of old ties and old pain with the two young they’d been blessed with.

And they were still in touch, but FaceTime was no substitute for the real thing, and he missed his brother like crazy sometimes.

At least s’Ex, the executioner, had gone with them. So that there was no worrying whether the family was safe.

“Denne’s not ready for any of this,” his Queen said.

What went unspoken was that she herself was also not ready.

And if he was honest, neither was he. Terror had clawed into his chest the instant he’d seen those two shooting stars, that which he’d banked in the back of his mind as a horrific improbability suddenly front and center.

Refocusing, iAm took another draw from his coffee. “I want to argue that point. I really do.”

“Did you go to the restaurant and find her before you came back here?”

“No, I saw the falling stars just as I stepped out of Dunkin’. Soon as I double-checked the time, I came for you.” As his shellan stared off into space, he knew he’d do anything to protect her—and their daughter. “I figured we needed to talk first.”

“We were wrong to keep the prophecy from her.” Catra shook her head. “We should have told her as soon as t’On did that chart.”

iAm pictured the royal Tretary. t’On was a no-drama, steady-freddie who took his job as observer of the stars and recorder of charts very seriously. When he’d done the celestial reading on the night of Denne’s transition, he’d been so shocked at what he’d seen, he’d refused to speak of it. Even when threatened with losing his position, he hadn’t been able to.

He’d just left the chart and retreated to his quarters.

The Territory in danger. Catra’s throne failing early. The only hope? t’On and Denne being mated to ensure the line of succession.

And the downfall all started with two falling stars crossing paths on an unknown winter’s night, the only clue given being the time. At 9:19 p.m.

They’d all expected good news when the chart had been done. Any young making it through their change was an incredible blessing, and in retrospect, he and Catra had been riding the high of their daughter’s survival when they’d asked the Tretary to take a peek at the night sky and see what lay ahead.

In the tradition of Shadows, the ask wasn’t unusual. For generations upon generations here at the s’Hisbe, the stars had been consulted for all manner of reasons. Births, illnesses, questions regarding matings, decisions about matters large and small. The heavens above were seen to influence the actions and destinies of mortals, the whirling positions of stars and moons a compass to reference when direction was needed on one’s path.

iAm had learned two lessons that night a decade ago: Don’t knock on the door of Fate unless you’re prepared for an answer. And your mood does not mean a goddamn thing when it comes to what you get when you ask.

When Catra had decreed that the chart be put away, t’On had been clearly relieved. Then again, mating the Princess and ensuring the throne’s succession had not been any part of his life’s plan. He was a celibate and a recluse whose devotion to quiet contemplation and prayer to the night’s sky was the reason he’d been promoted after the death of the previous Tretary.

In the aftermath, things had gone on as if nothing had happened, but the shadow of a future too scary to contemplate lingered.

“She doesn’t have to mate him,” he pointed out. But then what about the rest of the prophecy?

There was a long silence. And then Catra said absently, “The stars have never been wrong.”

“She does need to know.”

As his shellan looked across at him, she demanded, “So you want her to mate t’On, then?”

“I don’t want any of it.” He rubbed his face. “And I don’t know how much I believe.”

More like he didn’t want to believe the chart. The stars had fucked up his and his brother’s lives for a good while, even though everything had proved correct in the end. He just didn’t want his daughter’s existence messed with in the same way. In any way.

His mate reached out of the white circle and took his hand. “I’m sorry, iAm.”

“What are you apologizing for.” As he leaned in for a kiss—and violated the sacred space—she immediately met his mouth. “This is nothing you have done.”

“Sometimes I pretend that our lives are normal. That the crown is on someone else’s head, these golden robes on someone else’s shoulders.”

“Me, too.” He stroked her beautiful face. “But where does the parsing end, you know? How much can you take away without changing who you are? Because you’re worth… everything to me.”

And so was their daughter.

“What are we going to do about Denne?” his mate whispered. “She doesn’t care about the Territory. She doesn’t really care about… anything.”

As the sad words drifted, he had to agree. Their only young had never seemed tied to people or things. Right after her transition, he’d hoped that her becoming involved down at Sal’s would be something to get her out of bed in the morning. Instead, it was just a job that she did very well, and with a commitment that extended to her not missing any nights or skirting any responsibility. But there was no passion.

Not for the first time, he reflected that there was a special kind of hell reserved for parents who had to watch the light go out of their young’s eyes.

Or who had never seen it there to begin with.

Catra took another draw off the Dunkin’. “I don’t want Denne to be trapped. Not even if it’s the future of the s’Hisbe at stake.”

“What if she finds out she could have done something?” He offered his mate the cruller back, but she shook her head. “What about that.”

“Except it comes with a mating to a male she has no relationship to, at all. What if we tell her about it, show her the chart, and she does what she’s supposed to do because she’s like that. She might not be interested in the Territory, but I’ve never questioned her love for us. She’d be stuck with a hellren she doesn’t love for the rest of her life.”

“What if it’s the only way to save all of us?”

“So we turn our daughter into a sacrificial lamb? How’s that any better?”

“Than death and destruction she feels responsible for? Of everybody and everything here?”

Fuck, he hated to think like this.

“I hate making this decision.” Catra nursed her coffee and looked around the glass dome, to the stars that blinked and twinkled in the night. “You know what, sometimes I feel like such a fraud sitting here. What kind of Queen am I?”

“You are an incredible leader,” he said before sweeping his arm around. “You’ve transformed the s’Hisbe. After your mother’s death, you tore her palace with its torture chambers down, you redesigned this residence so that it flies under the radar of humans, you’ve made us safer.” When she went to interrupt him, he shook his head and kept right on going. “You revolutionized how our young are educated, gave them opportunities in the outside world they never had, made sure that there are new chances to bring money in, new ways to manage our security. For the first time in the s’Hisbe’s history, you’ve gone outside of the Territory and partnered with Wrath and the Black Dagger Brotherhood for all kinds of things. Without you, and your vision, our traditions would have no chance of surviving in the modern world. You have changed everything… for the better.”

Then he pointed to the center circle. “And yet you’ve kept this observatory, and not only that, you’ve used it nightly. You had a chance to stop the reading of the constellations, the stargazing, the astrological tradition that we have always had. Except you didn’t. When the previous recorder of constellations died, you made t’On the Tretary. You could have done away with the position—instead you chose a young male who’s going to live past the pair of us to fill the role and pass it on.”

There was a long silence, and then she shook her head slowly.

“Astrology is the basis of our entire culture.” Her eyes shifted away from his. “If the citizenry thought I’d walked away from the constellations, there would have been a revolt. And that’s still true.”

Catra put the coffee aside and yanked at the golden tie at her throat. As the knotting came undone, the robe split in two and she cast it off, the links tinkling and twinkling as it formed a twenty-four-karat snowbank around her. With a lithe surge, she propelled herself off the floor, her blue jeans and loose t-shirt making him think of the version of her he knew privately, in their suite of rooms.

The female he held in his arms during the daylight hours. Who he made love to. Who he laughed with, and worried with, and lived his mortal life for.

And yet even in the casual clothing, there was a regal cast to her face, and an imperial thrust to her posture. There always was. His shellan wore her power internally—which meant no matter what she had on, everything was a royal robe.

As she paced away from him, he stayed where he was, tucking into the second cruller and working on his coffee. Unfortunately, he didn’t taste the sweetness of the donut or the smoothness of the caffeine hit, but he didn’t want to waste them. He was a chef at heart, and someone had made both. The fact that it was a human paid by the hour and not some Michelin-starred snot didn’t matter to him.

Catra stopped and looked up, the ends of her black, curling hair reaching the small of her back. “What if she looks at the chart and is unduly influenced?”

iAm barked out a laugh. “Do you really think that’s possible? Denne’s more likely to tell the universe what to do than the other way around.”

But Catra was right. There was a sacrificial-lamb to this whole fucking thing.

As his beloved’s head lowered and she got to wandering again, she linked her hands behind her back and seemed to get engrossed by the smooth, polished floor. Whenever she did this, he could see the tangible weight of the crown on her head even though the circlet wasn’t there, could feel the exhaustion that came with so much responsibility.

She had to think of two things here. Her subjects… and their daughter.

He wanted to help her, even as he knew this was a burden she carried on her own. What he’d learned, over these many, many years, was that his presence was, miraculously, enough. He knew this because she told him so—and because there had been countless times, especially in the beginning as her changes were chafing her older subjects, when she would ask him to be with her while she thought.

And so he would sit here just like this and be witness until she was ready to put whatever was going on into words.

It was times like these that he truly understood how weary the head that wears the crown could be.

It was a while before she halted, and as she let her head fall back anew to stare at the night sky through the glass dome, he wondered if she was aware that she’d planted her feet in the center of the white circle.

Only the Queen was allowed to be inside that sacred circumference, and he tried to imagine their daughter standing there.

He just couldn’t. He really couldn’t.

But denial was a real bitch, wasn’t it.

Eventually, Catra righted her head and glanced over at him. “The worst responsibilities are those you don’t fully carry yourself.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What are you afraid of.”

His Queen looked back up to the heavens.

When there was no reply, he got to his feet. “Catra. Talk to me.”

The exhale that left her had a defeat in it. “You know… sometimes I wish you didn’t read me so well.”

“Tell me,” he said roughly. “Everything on your mind.”

It was a long moment before she answered. “I didn’t see us in her chart, either way. Whether she saves the s’Hisbe by mating t’On or she refuses and the Territory is destroyed, we… are gone.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Sun CrestTM Neighborhood

Off Rollins Field Road

Suburbs of Caldwell

Allhan never felt at ease arriving at the Sun Crest real estate development, and after tonight and everything that had happened, he nearly vibrated out of his own skin as he re-formed inside the gates. Standing at the center of the plowed circle from which six middle-class-America houses fanned out, he had so much guilt and dread curdling his stomach, he felt like he’d sucked back a sandwich made of bad mayo and surströmming.

Glancing around, he interviewed the various snowbanks for places to throw up, and didn’t all the Suzy-homemaker, cozy-cozy crap make his nausea worse.

Still, he had to give the Black Dagger Brotherhood credit. As ruses to fool humans went, the neighborhood was perfect. Everything from the architecture to the landscaping, from the curtains in the windows to the lazy smoke curling up from a couple of the chimneys, gave off the impression of happy, no-drama, family living. And like all the best illusions, it was a soup-to-nuts kind of thing. There had been Christmas lights and red-and-green decorations draped all over the roofs and the porches in December, and Thanksgiving had been punctuated with cornucopias and turkeys on the doors and the lawns. October 1st had brought blow-up ghosties and ghouls along with a raft of pumpkins, and though he hadn’t been here in July, he could guess that red-white-and-blue wreaths had been hung for Independence Day, and Easter bunnies had been out in April.

It was all a lie, though. No unaffiliated humans had ever or would ever live here. From what he understood, the neighborhood had been built up some three decades ago as cover for the subterranean facility the First Family and the Black Dagger Brotherhood lived in. These aboveground houses were occupied by doggen to keep appearances going, and technically he could enter any of the front doors. He always went to the yellow Colonial. Fritz Perlmutter, the First Family’s butler, lived there, and whenever Allhan went in, he got to be greeted with a warm welcome, and offers of food or services, and a pledge that anything he required would be provided immediately.

He was always glad to see that doggen, he thought as he walked up the steps onto the shallow porch. Something about that wrinkled smile made him feel less alone. At least for a moment.

As he got to the door, he looked up into the security camera, and a second later, the lock was sprung for him. No Fritz tonight, and he was disappointed while he made his way to the pantry. Finding the latch that was hidden under the shelves that held the preserved peaches, he sprung the secret release, and then went through all the checkpoints necessary to gain access to the stairwell.

On the descent underground, he thought back to those snowy woods, and that female who had smelled so good, looked so good, sounded so good. The memories of her were so consuming, the next thing he knew, he was down at the bottom and being cleared to enter the circular promenade that linked all the residences.

Thus why it was called the Wheel—

Deep voices down the way stopped him short. Closing his eyes, he straightened his spine and withdrew into himself. When he started walking forward, he told himself he was behind the bunker he’d built, safely hidden. Camouflaged in the environment.

God, he felt even sicker. This was wrong. All wrong—

“V?” The King’s voice was like thunder, rumbling through the air. “What the fuck are you doing out of bed—”

“Six civilians,” came the rough reply. “Attacked right off Market, in an alley behind that club, Bathe. Two were abducted, three killed outright, one was mortally wounded and survived long enough to tell what had happened. No human involvement. No calls into our emergency response number. No IDs.”

Allhan hurried up, his nose parsing out the scents. The Brother Rhage was with them, too—and he caught the overhang of fresh blood, which was alarming.

“Who found them,” the King demanded.

Coming around the turn, Allhan answered: “I d-did.”

An entire crowd turned toward him, but he stared only at the Brother Vishous. The fighter was dressed in a set of loose scrubs and standing lopsided on one leg like his hip or knee hurt. With a bandage wrapped around his nose and scrapes all over his face, it was clear he’d been in an accident or had some hand-to-hand go very wrong.

Had to be an accident. Hand-to-hand didn’t go wrong with that fighter.

“Tell me, son,” the King ordered in a level tone. “I want to know everything.”

Swallowing through a tight throat, Allhan glanced at Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath—and wanted to shit himself. The King was nothing to be toyed with, not that any of them were. But that hard, cruel visage, and those blind eyes that still seemed as if they focused on you, made him feel like the front he’d been putting on was transparent.

Before he could find his voice, even more people arrived, coming from both directions in the corridor. The faces and scents were as familiar as his own by now, and all he could think of as the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the other fighters stood around him was that he needed to remain in control of himself.

The reality of the grim game he was playing was never more clear than when he was surrounded. By them… or the enemy.

Locking his eyes on the floor, Allhan cleared his throat. “When I left the club through the emergency exit we use, I f-found them in the passageway… on the east side. The smell… of their blood was so strong. I called for help, just like we’re supposed to do—”

Vishous cut in. “Xcor and Payne were covering the territory and came right away.”

“R-right away,” Allhan echoed with a nod. “Th-the males who were attacked had been with Shuli, but he left early. They are—were—his f-friends.”

“When you found them, one of them was alive,” Wrath nudged.

“Yes, he d-died in my arms… and before he went unto the F-fade, he told me when they got outside… they smelled slayers, and then heard a clicking sound? They were tasered. Dragged farther down the alley. T-two were taken. I don’t know any of their names, not even his. He didn’t give it to me before he… I would recognize their p-pictures, though. Every one of them.”

“I know you would,” Vishous said immediately. “You did everything right.”

No, he hadn’t. No, he wasn’t.

Oh, God, he was going to throw up.

The King’s head rotated from side to side, taking in the assembled as if the male could see through the black wraparounds that always hid his eyes.

“And no one’s called anything in?” Wrath demanded. “On our emergency response line.”

“Not yet,” the Brother Tohrment wheezed.

“I d-did try to find out who the males were.” Allhan spoke faster and faster to get through the lies. “As soon as I could, I went b-back into the club to see if any one of their group were still in there, but everybody was gone? Shuli will know—”

“Who’s called that male?” Wrath interrupted.

“He’s not answering.” Vishous’s nasally voice spoke up. “I can go over—”

“I’ll go,” Tohrment interjected between coughs.

“Oh, fuck that,” someone said. “You two can barely stand—”

“I’m going—”

“—no, I’ll go—”

“You guys are fucking staying home—”

There was an eruption of talk, all the Brothers and fighters in the corridor speaking at once, everybody volunteering to head over to L.W.’s ahstrux nohtrum’s home. And as Allhan didn’t want to field any more questions about the evening, he snuck through the big bodies.

If he didn’t find a bathroom quick, things were going to get messy.

The residence in which Vishous and Jane lived was close by, and as he ducked inside and was greeted by the collection of colorful Crocs right by the door, he felt the walls close in on him. Next were all the duffle bags on the floor, and then it was the hallway hung with medical diplomas…

Everything felt like home to him now.

Although that had more to do with who lived here than what was on the floor or the walls.

As his stomach heaved, he clapped a hand over his mouth and started running. When he got to the spare room he’d been given, he skidded around the corner and bolted for the en suite.

He made it. Barely.

Landing on his hands and knees in front of the toilet, he grabbed on to the porcelain tank and held hard as his torso cranked into a fist and he tossed up yellow bile into the bowl. After a couple of rounds of nothing much, he lifted his head and used some Kleenex to wipe his mouth.

God, he hated the taste.

Hitting the flusher, he rested his head on his arm and stared out into the bedroom. The bed he’d been sleeping on for the last couple of months was just a twin, and the little side table next to it had a lamp with one of those charger plug-in bases. The bureau across the way was utilitarian as well—which was fine because he just had three pairs of jeans, two sweatshirts, and a collection of Hanes undershirts to fill out the narrow drawers. Nothing hanging in the closet, only Vans and some Crocs on the floor in there.

Well, Jane had just gotten him some snow boots. They were still in their box on top of the bureau.

As he remembered her knocking gently on the door, and offering the gift with a hopeful, almost apologetic, look on her face, a fresh wave of nausea tackled him. Lurching forward, he dry-heaved on repeat so many times he felt like the inside of his esophagus was on fire—

“How you doin’, son.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he told himself that his eyes were watering because of the straining. But that lie didn’t hold, not in his head. Not in his heart.

So many plans. He’d had so many plans about the way the second half of this was all going to go.

He’d just never thought that he’d find what he’d always been looking for in the midst of his deceptions:

A father who loved him. A mahmen who truly cared.

Except that wasn’t right. The pair of them just felt sorry for him because he’d created a fictional backstory meant to make people be sympathetic.

Allhan hit the flusher with a shaking hand and grabbed more Kleenex. “I’m okay.”

When he went to stand up, the world tilted and he had to catch himself on the wall. He made it to the sink, though, and immediately reached for his toothbrush.

He glanced into the mirror. “Are y-you okay?”

Vishous was leaning against the doorjamb like the thing was a crutch fitted to his massive body.

“I’m fine, true. And we’re talking about you. How you doing.”

Lowering his eyes, he opened his mouth, intending to I’m-fine back—

“Not g-good,” he heard himself say. “I’m… not good.”

As V stood against the bathroom’s entry, he didn’t see anything except the young male who’d stalled out with an Oral-B in one hand. Those pale blue eyes that so rarely met anybody else’s stare had dropped to the half-rolled tube of Crest by the sink, and it was like Al wasn’t sure what he was doing. Or even where he was.

Dead bodies in an alley. Two males kidnapped.

And he’d been the one who found the scene?

“I’m really sorry about what you saw,” V said roughly.

“Th-they shouldn’t have… died like that.”

“You’re right. They shouldn’t have.”

After centuries of being in the war, there wasn’t much V hadn’t gone through, but having Al get up close and personal with the carnage was a new level of shit. And he wanted to put his arms around the kid, except neither of them were the hugging type.

Al glanced at the toilet as if his stomach was rolling.

“You want a minute to yourself?” V said roughly.

“Y-yeah…”

“Come to my room when you’re ready.” When Al just nodded, V hated it, but he had to push. “I’ll be waiting.”

Back out in the hall, he moved as quickly as he dared because he wasn’t sure how much time he had before his legs gave out. As if the shit with Al wasn’t enough, Wrath had announced that he’d decided to step down from the throne.

Best. Night. Fucking ever.

Clearly, the fallout with Beth from that visit Wrath had insisted on making to Whestmorel’s house had been a line in the sand for the King, and anybody who loved their shellan could get where he was coming from. But he could not give up the throne right now. L.W. was in no way capable of leading the species, and with the aristocracy fielding a whole new lot of conspirators? Stability at the top was paramount, and that was true even before those six aristocratic males had been attacked by the Lessening Society tonight.

No wonder V felt fucking dizzy. And that was before the detour he’d had to take to convince Tohr to talk some sense into the King.

Down in his own bedroom, he eyed the mattress like it was a skyscraper. Jane was with Tohr, making sure the brother was still good, and there was something totally emasculating about having to call your female just so you could lie the fuck down.

V tackled the shit like… well, a little bitch, actually.

“Fuck—!”

The only good thing he could say about him heaving up his sorry, beat-up ass was that nobody else saw him eat his own pillow.

He was rolling over and feeling like his broken nose was a ticking time bomb to the beat of his heart when Al rushed in.

“C-can I get you anything? Do you need Doc Jane?”

Flopping onto his back, V waved that off with his gloved hand. “She’s dealing with a patient right now. We’re gonna leave them be.”

He did what he could to speak in a chill kind of way. Which was like asking a Belgian Malinois to check his teeth at the door and lay off the biting.

Not in his nature, especially when his nose was a balloon full of pain.

The problem was, Allhan was perpetually a bird about to take flight. Or now that he’d come through his transition, like an airplane about to double-engine down a runway.

Whatever. Enough metaphors.

“I t-tried to help,” Al blurted. “As best I could. But it was too late.”

V lifted his head and waited until the kid met his eyes. “It’s better that you weren’t with them when the attack happened.” The ’Cuz then you’d be dead, too was left unspoken. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Do you think the Brotherhood will find the lessers who did it?”

“There’s a lot of turnover in the Lessening Society, and with how many of those bastards are being inducted every month, every week, I think you gotta just look like any kill is the right one when it comes to slayers.”

Fuck. What was he supposed to say? Syphon and Zypher were particularly manic, stalking around the field, looking for those kidnapped males. Those two members of the Band of Bastards, as well as all the others, were going to do their damned best, and lessers were going to pay, if only because the entire Brotherhood and all the fighters were riding a fresh wave of hatred.

Not that anybody needed the extra juice.

“What happened to you?” Allhan motioned around his own face. “Like… with your…”

“Fender bender on the Northway. No big deal.”

“Was anybody else hurt?”

“No,” he lied. “We’re all good.”

“Okay.”

As Al went back to staring at his damp Converse, V reached out to the bedside table, opened the drawer, and patted around. When his fingertips hit the hand-rolleds he’d made the night before, his blood pressure started to go down sure as if he’d already lit up. It was as he tried to find a lighter that things got complicated—

“I-I, ah, I have to tell you something.” Allhan tripped forward and stuck out a red Bic. “I took this earlier. And one of your cigarettes. I just wanted to know, like, what it was about. The smoking.”

V popped his brows. “Don’t look so guilty, son. There’s plenty of both to go around, and I’m not going to tell you not to, true?”

Thank fuck they weren’t humans, so he didn’t have to worry about the whole cancer thing. Even though he was a live-and-let-live kind of male down to his core, if he knew this kid was doing something dangerous or stupid, he’d have to step in.

And fuck this parenting stuff, by the way. Next thing you knew he was going to be having missionary sex with the lights off and driving a minivan.

Al flicked up a flame. “Here. I can help.”

“Thanks.”

As those pale blue eyes shifted off to the side, V was glad the male was doing the holding. His hand had shaken a little when he’d put the coffin nail between his teeth, and like the chest pain, he’d prefer to keep that to himself.

When things were lit, V picked a tobacco flake off his lower lip and settled back against the pillows. “You can keep the lighter. And if you want more hand-rolleds, I’ll give them to you.”

“I smoked one out in th-the alley. After… y-you know.”

Christ. Al had been through enough in his short life, and if V was fucking honest, he’d had this fantasy that if he just kept the kid behind a desk at Four Toys HQ, there’d be some kind of insulation from the war for him. Instead, he’d walked out of a club on an otherwise normal night, and gotten the IMAX version of exactly what the Lessening Society did to civilian vampires.

Al cleared his throat. “Um, about the t-two males who were t-taken. What do you th-think…”

V took a hard drag, and exhaled with a surge of aggression. “I don’t know, son. It’s not good, though.”

He glanced at the bloodstains that ran across Al’s thighs, the blue jeans having absorbed the shit like the sponge they were. There were also some smudges and streaks on the gray sweatshirt. He’d noticed all of it right after he’d first done a stem-to-stern check-in that there were no wounds.

Those stains were never going to come out of those clothes, even if Fritz OxiClean’d ’em out of the surface.

V was certainly still going to see them. “Let’s try and not dwell on tonight, okay?”

“You’re l-letting the parents know?” When V nodded, Al crossed his arms over his now-much-bigger chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t know their names. I just… it’s not like that for me with them. Th-they’re important, I’m n-not.”

Now that’s where the kid was wrong. To V and Jane, Al was every-thing. A couple months here in this house, and he’d transformed the rooms into so much more than a place to dump dirty clothes and gym equipment before he and Jane crashed on their bed.

“You did enough. You got help, true? That’s what you were supposed to do.”

“I texted you. I swear.”

“I know you did.” He didn’t even have to check his phone. “I never doubt you.”

Al winced and covered his face. “It doesn’t feel like I did anything. I hate this.”

“I know you do, and so do I. The war is cruel, our enemy is evil, and innocent people are killed or worse all the time. But if you stay too long in that reality in your head, your thoughts become a black hole you can’t escape from—and that does no one any good. The security and IT work you do at HQ helps keep the species safe. It’s very important. So channel your fear and anger there, where you can and do make a difference.”

Instantly, V caught a new scent on the air, even through the bandage, and it was eerie the change that came over Al. Everything from his expression to his height to the size of his shoulders shifted. Gone was the kid. In its place?

A male. A mature male, with the same instincts to protect and kill that Vishous had.

As V’s eyes got watery, he blinked things clear. He’d never known Al as the infant, the toddler, the little boy, and he’d only known the pretrans for a matter of months. He wished he’d been through every stage, helped along the whole way, stood by the male for all the good and bad things.

He felt cheated. And also sad and proud.

God, he hated emotions.

“Did it help?” he asked roughly. “The cigarette.”

Al seemed to come back from wherever he’d been in his mind. “At the first inhale, I gagged and wanted to throw up.”

“How about after that?”

The male put the red Bic back in his sweatshirt pocket. “I liked it. It calmed everything.”

“That’s the way it works for me, too.” V cursed. “And just so you know, my phone is in my jacket back at the garage downtown. I didn’t get your text or I would have been there.”

“But you were in an accident.”

“I still would have come for you. As long as I’m alive, I’ll come for you.”

“Why,” Allhan choked out. “I don’t deserve—”

“Yes, you do. You deserve to have paren— Er, people who care for you.”

They hadn’t had the “p” word conversation yet. He and Jane certainly felt that way, but he wasn’t sure on Al’s side where the male stood on things. Certainly the pieces of shit who’d raised and abandoned him hadn’t filled the job description.

But that was a conversation for another night. This evening had had plenty of fucking drama already.

“I want you to take a little time off,” V said. “You need to recalibrate after something like this.”

Those pale blue eyes shot back to his own. “No. I don’t want to—”

“It’s not a request. And I’m going to ask Mary to talk to you. She’s Rhage’s shellan, you’ve met her. She’s one of the best therapists I know.”

Try only one, and that was on purpose. Still, look at him pulling the Brotherhood’s resident shrink into the mix. Not his usual go-to for sure, but Grey Goose didn’t seem like the best idea, and V had to do everything he could to get Al back on track. Otherwise…

Well, hell, he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself.

“I d-don’t need help,” Al protested.

“You already said you were not okay. And you wouldn’t lie to me, would you.”

Those heavy shoulders sagged. After a long moment, Al said roughly, “I’ll be fine… how ’bout that. Please d-don’t worry about me.”

V blew out a stream of smoke and shook his head.

Like father… like son.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After Denne left the clearing down by the river, she traveled in a scatter of molecules and re-formed on the front porch of a log cabin that was just outside of the s’Hisbe Territory. The wind was really gusting around, the energy required to shove the blizzard down and off of Caldwell lingering even after the storm had headed out of state to fuck up Allentown and Pittsburgh. As a result, the fluffy snow was already contouring into drifts and she had a thought about how nice spring was going to feel and smell.

She lived for that breath you took where you caught the first scents of earth and growing things after the long winter.

What she didn’t like was the hum off in the distance, that incessant murmuring of the data centers that the humans had built up all around the s’Hisbe’s vast acreage. It used to be silent out here, nothing but wildlife and forest. Now, she couldn’t escape the feeling that they were being closed in on.

Still, the cold felt good, and it did good things to her. The sting on her face, the tingling of her hands and her feet, the loft at the loose ends of her hair, all worked to clear out the cognitive dissonance that had frozen her mind so badly, she’d barely managed to evac herself out of those woods.

That male.

No, not the dead one.

Her head had been so scrambled, she’d ended up only a mile away from the clearing before she’d lost her concentration and had to go corporeal and regroup. She’d stayed there, hidden in the trees, for a little while, watching the helicopter and a string of cop-bot cars and real policemen race after the two bank robbers in her favorite truck.

Fuckers. God, she hated criminals.

Then again, she was riding the felony train, too, wasn’t she. She’d murdered someone tonight. For a good reason, it was true, but not like in self-defense.

And she had no regrets.

Taking out her phone, she reread the text that had come through when she’d been watching the police chase: All taken care of. Emilio drove her to her mother’s. Pls let me know you got home yourself.

“Oh, Marco. You’re the best,” she murmured as she typed out a suitable response.

Shutting the screen off, she put the phone back in her parka’s pocket.

Standing in the wind, she breathed through her nose and told herself it was done. The night, and everything that had happened—wannabe mobster guy, that poor young woman, the male she’d met down by the river—was over.

Especially what had happened with those fucking shooting stars.

She was just going to pretend none of it had—

As a creak sounded behind her, she outed her gun and whipped around, leading with the muzzle. When she recognized the robed male standing in the cabin’s open doorway, she cursed and lowered the weapon.

“Christ, t’On, do you want to get shot?”

Which would have made it two for two tonight.

The Tretary’s carved face and deeply set eyes captured the light thrown by the snow, his expression as grim as she had ever seen it.

“Did you see the stars?” he asked in that heavily accented voice of his.

Reholstering her gun, Denne stepped past him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.”

She took off her parka on her way across to a rack of different colored robes. “Hard to miss.”

t’On’s silence was something she was used to and unbothered by. She’d known her mother’s trusted advisor all her life, so there was nothing more to discover about him and nothing to hide from him, either. In this regard, the quiet wasn’t stressful, even though the situation they were both in was.

At the rack, she took the one empty hanger and put her parka on it. Then she grabbed the first robe her hand landed on. When she saw what color it was, she almost put it back. Royal purple was associated with matings.

“Do you believe in fate,” she asked roughly as she put it on.

When t’On didn’t reply, she glared over her shoulder—and had to remind herself that shooting the messenger was never the right strategy. Like he had any control over the constellations? Over what he had charted and read on the night she had survived her transition?

“Do you?” she pushed.

The somber male cleared his throat, his dark, elegant hands steepling in front of his chest. “I believe the stars have things to tell us.”

“You’re not answering the question.” She yanked the tie into a bow at the front of her throat. “Fate or free will. Which do you pick?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Both. I believe in both. The constellations are a road map. What we choose to do with their advice is up to us—and the consequences are our own.”

“So that’s why you showed me that chart. Even after my mother put it away.”

“I thought you should know.”

“Aren’t you worried I’ll let the Queen in on our little secret?”

“I will accept my consequences.”

“I’m not in love with you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You know it.”

“We have something important in common, however. You and I are both totally committed to the s’Hisbe, and we are worried about the same thing.”

“I’m not worried about anything.” When the Tretary slowly shook his head, she cursed. “You’re not in my mind.”

“I don’t have to be. You are a female of worth and your loyalty is to your people.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It is reality, just like what is in the stars.” t’On put up both his palms to cut off her defiance. “You are the savior of the Territory. Not your mother. Without you, the throne is lost, the s’Hisbe is wiped out—and everything we have ever been is gone. That is your destiny for the common good, but of course, you are free to choose.”

What about her parents, she thought. What about her mother as the rightful Queen.

“Don’t you think all this is a conflict of interest for you,” she murmured. “The two of us get mated, you’re in power, too.”

“With all due respect, do you not consider there is something wrong that I was the one who showed you your chart.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You tell me.” t’On shrugged, clearly unwilling to waste time arguing with her. “This is all up to you. I know how much you love your mother and sire, and my devotion unto the Queen has never been in question. That is why she has entrusted me with my position, and to her, I will always remain true. The s’Hisbe must be first in all our hearts, however.”

“The stars could be wrong.”

“No, they cannot. But you can do the wrong thing. I am prepared to sacrifice what I must. What about you.”

As the Tretary opened the door, there was a blast of cold air, and after he shut things behind himself, she stayed where she was. As the wind continued to howl, she glanced around the empty interior. With just her collection of robes hanging on their lonely rack, she felt like the traditional drapes represented the s’Hisbe and its isolated way of life that had gone on for generations in this tract of a thousand acres north and east of Caldwell proper.

Defending the Territory’s privacy had mandated a very specific interface with the human world. As far as those rats without tails knew, the Shadows were a religious sect that fell under the rubric and protection of the tax-exempt status afforded by the government.

But as with everything lately, there was constant pressure from all kinds of quarters.

And her chart had been very clear.

The Territory was in grave danger of being dismantled—her parents dead, the throne lost, all the traditions and citizenry gone, gone, gone. To keep this from happening, her destiny was to take the crown from her mother and mate the Tretary, producing the next heir immediately. And it all was triggered by two falling stars appearing at 9:19 p.m. one winter’s night.

Rubbing her tired eyes, she hated where her mind went.

Why hadn’t her mother and father ever told her? Was it because Catra didn’t want to relinquish the throne? Maybe the Queen didn’t believe in the stars as much as she was supposed to, and didn’t want to give up power?

Except she loved her parents, and knew them only to be kind, moral, and very decent people.

So the mistrust she had long pushed aside, but suddenly couldn’t ignore, seemed like a curse all its own.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Rhysallhan started ascending the pitch-dark staircase of his family’s mansion, he couldn’t believe he had another sterling silver candlestick in his hand. It wasn’t the one he’d turned into a murder weapon, but the beeswax stalk lighting his way was absolutely the same as what he’d removed and left on the dining room sideboard.

Beneath his numb feet, the steps creaked, and given the lull in the thunderstorms, everything seemed very loud. Perhaps that was because the lights remained extinguished, and lack of sight did tend to heighten one’s other instincts.

Or maybe he was on edge because he’d just, you know, killed someone.

Killed his own father.

Their own father.

When he got to the raincoat that his sister had dropped in her upset, he gathered the wet folds and kept on going. At the second story’s landing, he looked back and forth, and wished they had a generator. Old houses, though. Even if the Caldwell electrical grid had been updated over the decades, this estate had not been. And now it would never be.

At least not by anybody from their family.

As he started down to the left, he thought of generators, and how they’d probably have needed a commercial-grade unit to run the entire house. But at least if they’d had one, he could have turned the security system on.

And been sure that the slayer his father had been dealing with was not trying to reenter through other doors, other windows.

He’d checked the lock on the front door twice before he’d come up here to find Carmen. Nothing felt strong enough, though.

Fates, had he really just spoken with a lesser? Had he really just promised the enemy the locations of the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s primary residences?

But what choice had he had? It was either that or he and his sister were both going to end up dead tonight. That slayer had come looking for the information he’d paid Chritophe for… or blood.

Arriving at Carmen’s bedroom door, Rhysallhan knocked softly. “Sister mine?”

When there was no answer, he rapped with his knuckles once more. “Carmen, you do not have to say anything. Just listen to me.”

As he swallowed through a tight throat, his mind dipped back to when he’d been downstairs, negotiating in the darkness with the enemy of all that was right and moral in the vampire world, making a deal with the devil.

Actually, it was more stepping into the deal their father had set.

“Carmen, I want you to know that I am leaving this house after tonight and I shall never return. I have… made the future safe for you. You and Theo are free to be mated. This is best for the both of us. The only way… this all could have ended.”

When there was no response, he rested his head on the cool panels. With his heart pounding, he had to breathe harder and opened his mouth. That way, he couldn’t smell the blood of their father on his clothes as much.

“I wish there was a way to explain everything,” he said. “You must trust that I have my reasons, and they are more than sound—”

The door opened without warning, and he pitched forward, nearly falling on his sister. Somehow, he managed to recover and keep his balance, but as wax splashed on his wrist, he hissed out a curse and clearly scared her more. With a shriek and a scamper, she bolted out of the trembling, golden aura of candlelight.

Before she could say anything, he begged, “You cannot call the Brotherhood, Carmen. If Theothore’s family finds out what I have done, they will never consent to a mating and you will be an outcast. You will be left with no one.”

He moved forward into her room, hoping to see her face, meet her eyes. As if proximity equated with persuasion.

“Don’t come any closer!”

A restless shaft of lightning illuminated her crouched form. She was all the way on the far side of her bed, and holding up her cell phone like it was a homing beacon for aid.

“Of course I shall call the Brotherhood.” As the lightning flash faded, darkness consumed her once more, only her voice giving away her location. “You are a murderer. You killed my father!”

Our, he corrected in his head.

“You cannot summon them,” he repeated. “You will ruin your life, Carmen. Where I must go, and what I must do now, is nothing you can be a part of, so without Theo and his bloodline, you will be all alone—”

“You do not stand there, covered in my sire’s blood, and seek to advise me on anything!”

“I will not leave you to fend for yourself—”

“I do not want to know you!”

There was a rustling as she came back at him. On the edge of the yellow glow, she shoved the phone forward and made sure he saw her hit send.

“You are a murderer,” she said in a quavering voice. “A murderer!”

As the ringing sound of a call going through rippled across the tense silence between them, Rhysallhan felt a cold shaft of fear.

“You are sealing your own fate,” he said in a low voice. “Theo will never mate you if this gets out. His bloodline may be beneath ours, but they are still aristocrats, after all. Hate me if you must, but I implore you to think of your future and be logical about it.”

The second ring seemed even louder than the first. Then came the click of a connection made.

“Hello,” a male voice said through the tinny speaker of her phone. “What is your emergency.”

“He hurt you,” Rhysallhan whispered. “When you were but a child. Do not make a saint out of that male just because he’s dead.”

“Hello,” the voice repeated. “Do you need assistance?”

Carmen hung up with a look of horror. “Get out.”

“No.” Rhysallhan slowly shook his head as he extended her raincoat forward. “Here is the way we’re going to handle this. You’re going to put this back on, and you’re going to go open that window by your bureau. You’re going to dematerialize to Theo’s house. You’re going to be rattled and that will be appropriate because you’re going to tell him that Father and I have had to return to the family seat in the Old Country immediately. Although you are upset about our departure, you will explain that this is good news for the pair of you.”

As lightning prowled around the windows, he watched his sister take her coat and hug her arms around herself.

“You will explain that we must go defend our ancestral property against humans and it is not safe for you.” His voice grew tight. “This will make our actions both honorable and emergent, and will be a legacy worthy of you and your standing in the glymera.”

Rhysallhan reached inside his jacket and took out a roll of parchment from which silk ribbons of yellow, black, and bright blue trailed.

“You will give them this proclamation of approval and permission for your hand in mating, which is signed by our—” He cleared his throat and inclined his head. “By your father, and notarized by the King. They will be overjoyed that your sire is granting you in favor of their son, and you will tell them that you wish to have the ceremony sooner rather than later, given the danger your father and I are in, and the very real possibility that we will not return.”

“W-w-where did you get that,” she stammered. “H-how did the King sign it. How did our father—”

“None of that matters now. The only thing that is important is that you’re safe and staying with Theo’s family. You must not come back here after you leave tonight. Theo will insist that your things be retrieved. Our doggen will arrive at his door with all your belongings by the end of the night. And before you inquire, I will ensure our servants are well cared for financially before I depart, and certainly if you wish to take any of them, you are welcome to do so if they may be accommodated at Theo’s family’s estate.”

“You had this all planned,” she moaned.

“Yes, I did. This is the only way to keep you safe and happy. This is what you’ve always wanted, what your father was going to deny you—”

“Do not make this about me!” Hysteria rang in her every syllable. “You chose to—oh, dearest Lassiter above, you chose this! I never asked you to solve my heartbreak thus or to ahvenge whatever you think happened when I was a young!”

“He was going to get us killed, Carmen. And that is all you can know. The fewer details you have, the better.”

For a moment, there was only her gasping breath. “You lie.” She jabbed a finger at the parchment. “That’s a forgery.”

“I am not lying about the danger you are in.” He cursed. “Enough talking. You need to go now, and do exactly what I’ve said.”

“I do not want to ever see you again—”

“I am taking care of that.” He jogged the parchment at her. “It is not safe for you to be anywhere around me. Leave this house and do not return. All has been seen to so that you will be where you want and need to be. With the male you love.”

For a split second, he feared she was going to continue to fight him, and he glanced back at the open bedroom door. He should have locked them in together for safety because the lesser could have come back for any number of reasons. Yet as he refocused on his sister’s wide, tearful eyes, he knew she would have panicked and thrown herself out of the window if he’d closed them in.

“Hate me if it makes it easier.” He did his best to keep his emotions in check. “Just please, take care of yourself and your future. And never, ever speak of this to anybody. Forget you ever knew me or this house… or that monster down in the conservatory.”

When Carmen finally reached out her hand, it shook so badly, she nearly dropped the decree, and then as she struggled to put the raincoat on, he wanted to help her. Especially when it hung off-kilter.

But frantic was what they wanted.

“Tell Theo and his family that we must defend tracts of our family’s land in the Old Country,” he repeated so he was sure she got it right. “Humans are seeking to develop our legacy properties there. Father and I had to leave this night and we are facing danger. As you are a female, they will not expect you to have been given any details of the dealings, and they will also recognize the topic as a private family affair. They will be so happy to have you, and to announce the mating, they will accept it all without question. And there will be plenty of chaperones there so your honor will remain intact.”

Carmen cradled the parchment roll to her heart and glared at him. “You are not coming to the mating.”

“You will never see me again after tonight.” He closed his eyes. And then had to keep going. “A week from now, a letter is going to arrive for you at Theo’s address. It will be couriered over from the King’s own Audience House for it will be delivered there. It will inform you that Father and I have been killed, and be signed by distant cousins who have been trying to reach you and have been unsuccessful. You will be… inconsolable, but following the appropriate period of mourning, you will be mated to the male you love and go on to live a happy, safe life.”

“How long have you been planning this,” she demanded.

As soon as he’d figured out what their father was doing to restore the family’s finances. And with whom.

“It is done. That is all that matters.”

Rhysallhan went over to the window by her antique bureau and parted the heavy satin drapery. He had to put his shoulder into lifting the sash because he was so weak, and he reminded himself that it would not always be thus. Someday he would be through his transition, and be stronger.

Assuming he didn’t die in the course of this scheming.

But as long as his sister was safe, that was all that mattered.

“Go,” he told her as the sweet scent of the garden entered in a damp rush. “Theo and his family will encircle you with care—and never attempt to come back here. I do not want anybody anywhere near this house. Consider it… cursed.”

For what felt like an eternity, Carmen stayed where she was, the coat sloppily hanging from her thin body, her blue eyes swimming with tears, that parchment supporting the union with her beloved held tightly at her sternum.

“I have thought of everything.” He spoke in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. In reality, he wanted to yell at her because he had a lot of things to clean up before the doggen returned. “This is the way it must be.”

She jerked to attention and looked at him. “How is this real.”

“Over the last several weeks, I have often wondered the same thing. Go now.”

At last, she followed his command, heading over to the window and staring out into the night. The sounds of rain on the tree outside her room were soft, and as he listened to the gentle taps on the leaves, he realized that the wind had died off.

“How ever shall I dematerialize,” she whispered.

“Calm yourself by thinking of your bright, happy future.”

As his voice cracked on the last word, Carmen looked back at him. “You do not know that anything happened to me… that anything was done by…”

Rhysallhan nodded gravely. “And neither does anybody else.”

He could have sworn she nodded back at him, but maybe it was just a figment of the candle’s light.

After that… his sister was gone.

Forever.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The following evening, Denne re-formed on the cabin’s front stoop to do her nightly robe-for-parka swap before she headed for Sal’s. It was around quarter of five, not that she needed to worry about the time. Unlike vampires, Shadows could go out in the day, and in the past ten years, there had been plenty of times she’d been grateful for that fact.

The idea of being trapped indoors or underground while the sun was high in the sky sounded like a prison sentence. Not that she’d left her private quarters at the palace today.

Heading inside, she stalled.

Nothing. Her parents had said… nothing… when she’d gone to see them last night.

She’d been braced for all kinds of conversation and revelation, but what had she gotten? Her mother working on the ancestor regression codex that had been her sacred project for the last year and her father convening with Julia Child in the royal couple’s private kitchen.

Oh, sure, they’d chitchatted about the restaurant, the blizzard, the humans who’d shown up, demanding to meet about buying some of the Territory’s land. That was it.

After the totally uneventful check-in, she’d headed for her own quarters and taken a shower. Where she’d stayed under the hot water for an hour. It had been around dawn when she’d finally fallen asleep, and she’d woken up surprised that it was almost dark.

“Parka,” she muttered.

Swapping the royal purple robe for her North Face, she told herself going to Sal’s was better than sitting around and stewing. And she would have believed it. If she hadn’t gutted an asshole in the parking lot the night before.

But at least she’d be dealing with a different problem at the restaurant, right?

As she stepped back out into the snow, she closed her eyes, intending on dematerializing to where she garaged her truck.

“No truck,” she said aloud. “I don’t have my goddamn truck anymore.”

Like a blackjack dealer was serving her face-ups, snapshots from the drama came at her in sequence: Young woman in the blue dress. The vinaigrette. The very pointy hi-how’re-ya by that awful-colored Beamer.

The clearing down by the river.

And the vampire who had shown up.

The image of that male standing there in the gray sweatshirt and those jeans, his pale blue eyes locking on hers, the wind rustling through his silky hair, felt far more permanent than it should have been. What the hell did she care about a stranger she’d met for how long? Fifteen minutes? Twenty, tops?

Except the fucker was like a ghost jumping out from behind corners, even with everything else that was going on.

Shoving him out of her mind—again—she closed her eyes and breathed slow and easy. The centering attempt didn’t help her concentration. There wasn’t a lot of wind tonight, so instead of going deep inside of herself so she could travel in a scatter of molecules into Caldwell proper… all she heard was the humming.

Popping her lids, she glared off to the north. The goddamn humans and their data servers. Over the last few decades, an entire city of buildings housing AI engines and the aggregators of information that fed the models had grown up around the s’Hisbe and the tonal disruption was the kind of thing that you didn’t notice until you did.

And then you could hear nothing else.

Noise pollution wasn’t just jet airplanes and highway traffic. This shit was like the whole world had tinnitus.

Grabbing her earbuds from her pocket, she shoved them into her head, and waited for the noise-canceling to kick in—

Ah, silence. Manufactured or not, it was better than the hmmmmmmmmm.

Just as she was about to dematerialize, she had one more thought about that male who’d stepped free of the trees down by the river and not stopped talking at her: Even before she’d shot him, there’d definitely been blood on his clothes. Was that stretch of forest some kind of community dumping ground for dead bodies?

And here she thought she’d been all smart and strategical, as the saying went.

By some grace of the stars—or more like habit, really—Denne managed to go molecular and travel through the cold to Sal’s. As she re-formed in the shadows just outside of the parking lot’s lights, she wondered what the hell she was going to do about that BMW—

It was gone.

“Fuck.”

The word was repeating in her head as she let herself in the restaurant’s back door and peered cautiously into her plain-Jane office. But come on, like the consequences of her actions last night was some kind of trespasser she could avoid if she were just sneaky enough?

Nothing was out of place or unusual. The desk with the laptop and phone was where she’d left it, her office chair, too. There wasn’t much else in the little room, except for the beat-up bulletin board and its single faded, off-kilter New Yorker cartoon that had been pinned on the cork fifty years ago.

She glanced down the hall toward the kitchen. The brisk chatter of the cooking staff and the scents of onion and garlic being sautéed in pans were nightly staples in her life now, and she tried to imagine not coming here anymore. The pang of nostalgia was a surprise.

“Maybe paperwork will cure that,” she muttered as she went around and sat in her chair.

The door in from the parking lot immediately opened again, and as soon as she heard the stomping of the boots, she knew who it was.

“You’re going to wear that mat out,” she said over the thumping.

Willie popped his head around the corner and smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home. Are we doing better tonight?”

No. “Yes, but we were fine yesterday. Hey, could you ask Marco to come down here for a sec?”

“Sure.” The man leaned against the concrete jamb. “But first, I have to confess something.”

She plugged her elbows into the top of the desk and thought, Finally, someone else’s problems. “Tell me everything—wait, let me guess. You fired your florist—I know it’s not the chef because you’re having Marco do the food.”

Willie fiddled with the black bow tie at his skinny neck. “So this is my last night working before the wedding.”

“You want to leave early again? It’s fine, I can cover—but I told you not to pull shifts this week—”

“So I’m not going to have a chance to say this in person after tonight.” He hesitated. Then offered her an apologetic version of his smile. “But Nick and I really want you to be there on Saturday.”

Ducking the man’s eyes, she focused on a liquor order write-up that’d been put on her laptop, and absently noted that there were two more bottles of vodka than usual on the list. Oh, right. There had been that poker convention in town so—

“You could just come to the ceremony.” When she glanced up, Willie shrugged with plaintive optimism. “Obviously, you’re going to pass on the reception. But you could, like, pop in, give us a hug, and blow out of there. And listen, we truly don’t blame you about the reception—even though you’re going to miss Marco’s dinner, which is a sin. We’re talking twenty minutes—thirty, tops. And then you come to us, tell us you love us and you’ve never seen more beautiful flowers, and you’re off.”

Tilting back in her squeaky chair, she rubbed her eyes as she tried to pick which of the standard no-can-do’s she typically used.

He waited until she dropped her fists into her lap: “I mean, I know you’re a vampire and everything, but you don’t have to worry about the sun this time of year.”

Her heart stopped. What the fuck. Had Marco somehow figured something out last night—

Willie swiped the air and giggled. “Joking about the vampire part, even though you’ve always turned down our brunch invitations. I’m trying to keep things light.” He got serious again. “Because I don’t want you to see how important it is to me for you to be there. For Nick, too.”

“I honestly don’t know why my presence matters to you.”

The human recoiled, and almost caught the hurt expression from taking over his face. “Oh. Okay. Ah—”

“Willie, look—”

He put his hands up. “No. No, it’s cool. Like, I get it, yeah. Crowds are… bad.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Don’t worry, and let’s forget I asked. I’ll go get Marco for you.”

As the man disappeared, she dropped her head and cursed. Working here was just supposed to be a favor for her father, a hold-the-reins until he could come back and ride the stove without a lot of questions from humans. She didn’t actually care about this place or the people.

Really. She didn’t.

And holy hell, the urge to bolt and never return was so great, she curled her hands on the worn arms of the office chair and started leaning forward.

“You wanna see me, boss?”

Pulling herself together, she stared at Sal’s head chef. The man looked exactly the same, dark hair slicked back, no stains on his whites, belly round as Santa’s. As with her office, she expected him to be different, but like her actions last night were going to make a horn sprout in the middle of his forehead?

Before she could figure out how to ask about the BMW without asking, Marco came forward and put a little plate down in front of her. “Your fave.”

Denne deflated at the sight of the most perfect crepe she’d ever seen.

“Right off the pan and I made the chocolate inside myself.”

Unexpected tears made her blink quick as she went for the fork. Cutting through the delicate, golden brown wrap, the interior melted in a glorious, slow rush of flavor. The first bite was heaven. The second was even better.

“You seen the news today?” Marco said conversationally.

“No?”

“Two-bit gangster with a history of dumb shit was found dead down by the river. Guess somebody got a little ahead of himself and some friends of his took care of the problem. Ain’t that life when you get what you asked for.”

Denne continued eating, even as things got harder to swallow. “Any leads on who did it?”

“Nope, and with CPD resources being as tight as they are, nobody’s prioritizing a bad guy who got what was coming to him.”

“Hmm. Yeah.”

“Anyway, you needed sumthin’?”

“Ah, yeah.” She put the last bite into her mouth and started scraping the leftover chocolate with the side of the fork. “The restaurant’s paying for all the food this weekend. For the wedding.”

From out of the corner of her eye, she caught Marco’s half smile. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, least we can do. Willie’s been here how long?”

“Fifteen years. Since he was workin’ summers as a busboy during high school. He grew up at Sal’s. They’re gonna be real grateful to you.”

She put the fork between her lips and drew it out slowly. “It’s the right thing to do. God, Marco, this was amazing. It really hits the spot.”

The moment she put the utensil down, he ambled forward and picked up the plate. When he got back to the door, he glanced at her.

“You okay if I add some lobster to the menu? Willie mentioned offhand that it’s Nick’s favorite, but they was sticking to their budget.”

“Anything they want. It’s a special day.”

“Good.” Marco kept his smile in place, even as his eyes went dead fucking serious. “You know what I like about you, Denne?”

“It is not my charming personality, that I know for sure,” she muttered.

“You always do the right thing.” As her eyes flashed to his, Chef nodded once. “Always.”

As the man walked off, she leaned back in the chair once again, and the squeak went right through her ear and into her brain like an ice pick.

God, if she’d had a window, she would have pitched the damn thing right out into the snow—

Denne’s head whipped up like someone had shouted. “The knife. Oh, shit. I left the knife last night.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hard-on. Stiffy. Morning wood.

Boner.

As the list of crude vernaculars went through Allhan’s head, he stared down his body, dumbfounded at his dumb-handle. The thing was lying up his stomach, thick as his fucking forearm under his flannel PJ bottoms, throbbing to the beat of his heart. He could see the baseball-bat outline even through the blanket that covered his lower body, and unless he was totally delusional, it seemed to be chanting his name.

Glancing around the bedroom, he wondered what he did now—okay, fine. He knew… well, he could kind of guess what one of the choices was, and it involved a handshake introduction with some follow-through.

He also knew why it had happened. One, he was through his transition, which meant that he could now be sexually active. And two, not only had he fallen asleep to thoughts about that female down by the river, he’d dreamed of her.

Not naked dreams. Not nasty, naked stuff.

Just her dark eyes and her lush mouth, her beautiful black cloud of hair and her voice—

His arousal kicked under the layers of flannel and blanket, like it was looking for that handshake in the dark, and the sensation that shot into his pelvic floor was a revelation. Actually, screw his hips. His entire blood volume seemed to be replaced with delicious purpose, all kinds of anticipation, energy, and feel-great endorphins taking over from the dread that usually coursed through his veins.

He lifted his head and looked down himself again. He was probably the only male in Caldwell who needed an instruction manual to jerk off—nah, that wasn’t it. He was the only one who, when in this state in the privacy of his own bedroom, had no intention of taking things to their normal, messy conclusion. It just seemed disrespectful to that female, even if she didn’t know what he was doing.

He was a gentle-male, after all. In spite of his current circumstances. And even if he didn’t know anything about her, not even her name, he knew that she was a female of worth.

She must have had a really good reason to kill that human.

On that note, he checked the clock and saw that it was past six. On those rare occasions he slept in, Vishous usually played alarm clock. Not tonight, apparently. Guess the whole you’ve-been-benched thing was going to stick, at least until he proved that he was functioning just fine.

Or some kind of emergency required an all-hands-on-deck.

Probably was going to be the latter.

Gritting his teeth, he tossed the sheet and blanket off and shifted his legs to the floor. As he got to his feet, the visual presentation down south was tent-pole absurd, and he supposed that, in a parallel universe where he had any prospects with any female, he might have been impressed with himself.

But that was not where things were going. Not at all.

Nothing was getting stroked. Not his ego, and certainly not his… you know.

As he headed into the en suite bathroom, he thanked Lassiter that he didn’t have to walk down the hall, leading with this obscene, 3-D dick-pic, and when he got to the loo, he pulled the waistband waaaaaay out and—

Jesus.

Shaking himself back to attention, he got his PJs past the erection and hesitated with his hand next to the shaft. Touching it was not going to be a good idea. After doing some logistics modeling, he decided to squat into his thighs and tilt over the bowl. With one hand braced on the wall, and the other waving off to the side for balance, he did what he could to get the aim right.

Again, there was no way he was touching that thing. He was afraid it was liable to explode and take the rest of him along for the—

Nothing.

Clearing his throat like he was about to launch into a stern talking-to, he concentrated on getting things started. Still nothing.

“Are you even kidding me.”

Glancing around, as if the showerhead or the sink faucet could help the situation given that both were channels for water, he gritted his teeth and squeezed his internal organs.

When that also failed, he straightened and flushed the toilet. Then he rolled his eyes at the stupidity of habit and hobbled over to open the shower door—

Wha-BAM!

“Ow! Fuck! Fuck… fuck!”

It took him a couple rounds of dancing around and loosely cupping the area to figure out that he’d caught the arousal with the chrome edge of the glass panel. The ringing pain was enough to back him up against the sink, and as his ass hit the counter edge, the hard-on bounced around like it was spring-loaded.

And what do you know. He felt every swing, each bob, all the weaves. Even caught the brushing of the air over the hypersensitive skin. It was awful.

Well… until he imagined how it would feel to have that female’s hand be what was creating the friction. That would be really fucking nice—

He cut that shit off real quick. For one, it felt just as skeevy as the way he’d woken up, and secondly, that took things in an even more concrete direction. Where what he was looking for was a deflation.

When he reapproached the shower door, he made sure he kept the length out of range as he turned on the hot water.

“Baseball,” he told himself.

Wasn’t that what men or males were supposed to think about? To, you know… distract themselves? Crap. He didn’t know a damn thing about America’s favorite pastime.

C++ coding did it.

By time the water was running warm and he stepped in, he’d created a user interface for banking transactions running between encrypted vendor prompts and Bitcoin wallets not on regulated exchanges. Just a little light programming.

And possibly something he could sell to some human financial speculator when his grim work was finally done.

He was going to need to support himself.

The shower took five minutes and not because he wasn’t thorough—well, he didn’t spend a lot of time on his junk, that was for sure. But the rest of his body and his hair, he covered with an efficiency he was used to, even if his surface area had increased tenfold.

It was so weird, he thought as he stared down at his relatively flaccid sex. When he’d gone through his transition, he hadn’t gotten an erection. He’d heard some males did, and maybe it was because, in his case, there had been so many people around when the change had happened.

Maybe it was also because Lyric had been the one letting him take her vein and he’d had enough presence of mind not to disrespect her like that. Whatever the reason, this evening’s wake-up call had certainly dispelled the notion that he might be impotent.

He was the damn poster boy for Cialis.

By the time he was dressed and stepping out into the hall, he didn’t feel totally refreshed, but he was definitely restarted. And when it became obvious that nobody else was in the residence, and a check of his texts confirmed this, he felt bad that he was so relieved. He couldn’t dwell on that, though. He had shit he needed to take care of.

On that note, he made sure location services were off on his Samsung.

Hitting the Wheel on a fast-track tempo, he skirted along the circular corridor while praying he didn’t run into anybody. Given what had happened last night, he did not want sympathetic eyes or words. He wanted everybody to ignore him.

Duck-and-cover remained his mode while he went through the check-ins required to come up into the interior of Fritz Perlmutter’s house. He kept expecting to be denied passage, given that Vishous ran all the security, but clearly the Brother didn’t intend on keeping him a prisoner. Emerging onto the yellow Colonial’s front porch, he glanced around the development. When nobody rushed forward to stop him from leaving, he closed his eyes and dematerialized toward the downtown, praying that he didn’t re-form in the middle of a road sign or a lamppost.

Or a moving car.

By some miracle, he managed to avoid an embedded impairment, and as a chaser, he also found himself where he’d intended to go.

The roof of the Caldwell Public Library.

Taking out his burner phone, he stared at the darkened screen. The city was alive all around him, cars flowing over the twin bridges in both directions, lights twinkling in the windows of the skyscrapers, pedestrians walking in huddles to parked cars, to the bus stop.

He was jealous of every single one of those rats without tails.

Whatever their problems were, at least they were not betraying the very male who had taken them in and treated them as a son.

As he signed into the unit with a code, his gut rolled and he bent down, thinking he was going to dry-heave again. When he didn’t, he went into the phone log. There was only one number listed, the back-and-forth of calls received and sent out going to the same 518-area-code-led destination.

Things were answered on the first ring.

“Where were you last night.”

Allhan closed his eyes and pulled his shit together. When he reopened them, there was no wobbling, no hesitation, no stutter.

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“Oh?” came the drawl. “Tell me more. No? Cat got your tongue?”

The accented voice made Allhan’s skin crawl, and he remembered the bodies in the snow last night. The blood. The suffering.

“You’re out of time, vampire,” the lesser cut in. “I’ve been patient with you, but I’m done with that.”

“You’ll get what you need. This is not an easy task, I told you.”

“It’s been six months—”

“No, it’s been three since I’ve started to really get inside.” A wholly unfamiliar surge of aggression went through him, his fangs tingling in his upper jaw and then descending. “If you want the addresses of where the Black Dagger Brotherhood stay, I have to get them under the radar. I’m of no use to you if I’m caught and killed by the King because I rushed this.”

“So give me what you have.”

“One whole list. That was our deal. Besides, piecemeal is useless to you. You have to attack all at once or they’ll move and the addresses will be worse than worthless. They’ll become traps for the likes of you—”

“You have no idea about my plans.”

“You want to be Fore-lesser.” When there was a beat of silence, Allhan heard his new, deep voice go even deeper. “Did you think I don’t know how things work for you? And strategy is everything in war, whether you’re going after your enemy or your enemy is your own fucking job competition. Don’t blow your chance with impatience.”

“You have a week,” the slayer gritted out. “And then I’m going to visit the one address I do have. I’ll be sure to give your regards to your sister. She’s going to like me. A lot.”

A cold shaft of terror sharpened Allhan’s mind to a dagger point. “You don’t know where she is or you would have already gone there.”

“But last night changed everything for me. Do you miss the friends you’ve been going to Bathe with? Those males who smelled like cologne and wore such beautiful clothes? Those males, the ones I met last night. In the alley.”

Allhan felt the world spin and threw a hand out for balance.

“I thought you were getting a little complacent,” the slayer said. “Focus is an important characteristic in life if you want to get ahead, if you want to do important things. So myself and an associate took care of your distraction and I learned all kinds of things. You have one week, and then your sister dies—oh, and don’t try to move her. We have her glass house staked out as we speak—I’m watching her cut melon at her counter right now. She obviously takes care of herself.”

The connection got cut off, and in a fit of rage, Allhan hauled the burner back like he was going to throw the fucking thing to the other side of Caldwell.

Except he couldn’t lose his one way to keep in touch with the enemy.

As his emotions exploded in his chest, he opened up his mouth.

And roared into the night.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Down at street level, L.W., a.k.a. Wrath, blooded son of Wrath, the great Blind King, and the Queen Elizabeth, heard a vicious yell and turned in the direction of the sound. He was two blocks east and north of where he guessed it was coming from, and he might have missed the ugly blaring holler if the wind hadn’t carried the aggression to him.

As he pivoted in the snow, his shitkicker grabbed and squeaked, and the pain that shot out from his hip nearly made him Polo the Marco with a couple curses of his own.

“Fucking humans,” he muttered as he forced himself to keep walking. “Always making noise.”

His body was beat to shit, the injuries racking up in layers and not clearing like they used to. Like he needed them to. And this was even after he’d fed recently.

What a shit show that had been. But he wasn’t thinking about Bitty and what he’d done to her. Not here. Not now.

That’s what the daylight hours were for. Out here in the dark, he was on the clock.

Stalking the base of one of the skyscrapers by the city library, he felt the cold air swirl around him, but was numb to the frigid temperature. He didn’t let the snowbanks slow him down, either. As he came to the Lincoln Street intersection, he up-and-over’d yet another mini-mountain with a jump—

Only to land in the path of an oncoming SUV.

Holy horn blare, Robin.

The driver stomped on the brakes and went into a controlled skid that brought the Range Rover right up to the tips of L.W.’s shitkickers. At which point, the man behind the wheel lost no time rolling his window down and cursing up a fucking blue streak.

L.W. put his hand on the front grille and pushed the entire vehicle back a couple of feet. Then he bared his fangs and snarled.

Cue the oopsies.

“My bad,” the man mumbled as that window went riiiiiiight back up. Then in a muffled voice: “Sorry I was in your way. No problem, good to go.”

Babble, babble, babble.

For a split second, L.W. imagined punching out the safety glass, and grabbing the bastard by the throat. Even as sore as he was, all it would take was a good yank, and he could drag the fucker into the street. At which point they could have a little dance.

His cell phone going off in his pocket cut short that impulse. Which ultimately might—or might not—have been overridden on a cooler-heads-prevailing kind of thing.

This better be the intel I’m looking for, he thought as he saw who it was.

L.W. continued across the intersection as he answered. “What did you find.”

Rhampage, blooded son of the Black Dagger Brother Qhuinn and the Chosen Layla, adopted son of Blaylock, son of Rocke, and the Bastard Xcor, didn’t waste time.

“I don’t have the address.”

L.W. stopped again and glared up at the facade of the Caldwell Public Library. “What do you mean.”

“I can’t find it anywhere,” the fighter snapped. “The Brotherhood hasn’t put the address of where those two torture victims were found in the scene reports.”

“They’ve hidden it on purpose.”

“No shit.” There was a pause. “You sure your father hasn’t said anything about you going out into the field on the low-low? Maybe they hid it from us because they don’t want you going there.”

“My father doesn’t matter in this.”

“Are you fucking serious right now.” There was the hiss of a vape. “We’re one more bright idea away from house arrest, and your dad’s got more than the juice to make that lockdown a reality.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“Look, maybe we take a break from our little side hustle. Just until things cool down.”

L.W. bared his fangs again. “Another six civilians get killed and that’s your fucking solution? We back off? Have you seen the pictures of the bodies. Rolhand had his upper lip nailed back to his cheekbones and his fangs pulled out—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, relax—”

“Have I?” L.W. demanded. “The Brotherhood and the fighters need a bigger presence in the field, not smaller. Lash is a fucking machine making new lessers. We’re running out of time.”

Actually, he was the one running out of eyesight. But he wasn’t bringing that shit up. Like everything that had happened with Bitty, his piss-poor peepers were another no-go zone.

“I want to know where Emile and Rolhand were taken last night,” he gritted out. “And I want to personally find the slayers who hurt all of Shuli’s boys and have some fun with them.”

Rhamp took another hit of his vape and exhaled in a whoosh. “You’re telling me this is for Shuli? For the roommate you hate? I don’t buy that for a second so spare me the Good Samaritan routine. You just want to interrogate lessers—”

“Is that wrong? What, I’m supposed to bandage their fucking boo-boos and send them back to Lash?”

“I don’t think you’re just looking for information when you hurt those undead sonsabitches.”

L.W. curled up both his fists, until the cell phone cut into his palm. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

“I’ve seen your face. You like it. You’re a helluva lot more sadistic than you admit.”

“Fuck you.” As a pair of humans jogging down the library’s steps glanced over at him, he lowered his voice. “Those were your boys, too, Rhamp. I’m surprised you’re not more fired up—or are you getting afraid. Did you see those pictures and get rattled, buddy? Mmm? Worried that’s what’s going to happen to you and it’s making you lose your nerve?”

Rhamp’s voice grew uneven. “I’ve got Emile’s and Rolhand’s sisters calling my phone and weeping. I got their cousins asking me how they can go hunting—when they’re aristocrats who wouldn’t know how to hold a gun to save their fucking lives. I’m not losing anything but patience with your fucking attitude.”

“Then leave.”

“You know what your problem is—”

“I don’t care what your opinion of me is, and spare me the emotions of others. It’s never been persuasive before, and it’s not starting now.”

“That why you keep asking if I’ve seen Bitty? Because you don’t give a shit about people?”

L.W. growled into the cold breeze. “She’s not my Kryptonite. If that’s why you’re bringing her up—”

“FYI, I know what you said to her, when you showed up half dead at Safe Place. Everybody knows what you said to her when she offered you her vein.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, L.W. bit out, “This conversation is over.”

“You insult her in the single worst way a male could ever insult a female. And then you just walked away from that, right? Suuuuuuuure you did. Never thought of it again. Never, ever thought of her again—”

“Just get the address where they found those two males,” he snapped. “I don’t care how you do it. Oh, and you can go fuck your- self.”

Cutting the connection, it was all L.W. could do to stop from doing some screaming himself. What kept him from going nuclear on the vocal was the fact that he was on the edge of the field and there were slayers somewhere around him. And as he glared over at the lion statues that flanked the columned entrance of the library, he was frustrated that he couldn’t go where the best hunting was. This was an unlikely part of town to find slayers. It was way too brightly lit, and there were too many humans, even though it was after dark on a cold night.

There was only one thing that the Lessening Society and the Brotherhood agreed on in this war: No one wanted those rats without tails involved.

He needed to be in the shitty part of town, where the drug-house walkups and the abandoned buildings were. Where the CPD Public Safety monitoring system didn’t have cameras everywhere. Where the streetlights were broken, and if there were humans around, they didn’t want trouble.

Where the lessers stalked the streets looking for fighters so they could try to bring a Brother’s head home to their master on a stake.

He’d find slayers there. He always found slayers there.

The problem was, if he ran into a member of the Brotherhood or the Band of Bastards in the high-number avenues of the city? If he crossed paths with one of the fighters?

The complications were going to be historic.

And his father might very well kill him.

Which considering L.W. was supposed to be banned from the schedule for his own safety was just too fucking stupid—

A scent registered and his head craned to the left. The prevailing wind was coming from the south tonight, ushering a not-quite-as-cold kind of frigid winter air, and on the surging currents, the smell of death and baby powder was a welcome stench.

Well, maybe tonight was looking up, after all.

Slipping one of his silver daggers out of the holster on his chest, he doubled back and moved like the predator he was through the shadows. As his blood hummed with deadly intent and his fangs dropped even lower, he had to admit that Rhamp probably had a point about him getting off on hurting those fucking assholes.

But the guy was wrong about the why. It wasn’t just because it was what he’d been bred to do. And it wasn’t just because he was honestly enraged by the deaths last night.

When he was hurting the enemy, he wasn’t thinking about Bitty.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Before Denne left the restaurant, she made an excuse to Marco. She didn’t even know what she said. Something about fish. Which was stupid because the monger was beyond closed after five p.m., and also because she hated everything surf-related and Chef knew that: From the way the shit smelled, and how it felt raw, to the fact that a lot of the stock came with eyeballs, she just couldn’t handle the stuff.

If there was one errand, ever, that she would farm out, it would be an after-hours fish-pedition.

Still, Marco bought whatever the hell she’d said, waving a white- handled knife with the Sal’s logo on it over his cutting board as he stayed focused on trimming fat off a hunk of roast beef.

The fucking knife from the carving station.

Goddamn it.

As she went out the back door and it clapped shut behind her, she was kicking her own ass. All brains could be manipulated, and human gray matter was especially easy to work with. But what was impossible to control were those fucking CPD cop-bots that were everywhere in the last decade. No minds to influence. No memories to hide. And their recordings were instantly sent back to police HQ.

For fuck’s sake, that male in the hoodie and the jeans had caused her to get beginner-basic sloppy. Leaving the murder weapon behind? With an identifying mark on it like, oh, say, the fucking name of the goddamn restaurant the guy had been to?

OMG, at that level of stupid, they should first take her driver’s license away as a public service.

Courtesy of her mental lapse, Sal’s was going to get a visit from the Caldwell Police Department. ASAP.

The place was probably staked out already.

As she went around to the dark side, she thought about Marco and Emilio. She’d brought a murder to those two men, and turned them into accomplices. Sure, she hadn’t forced them to help with the young woman and the car, but they were men of worth who protected their own. There was no way they wouldn’t have chipped in like they had, given the situation.

And now shit was very complicated.

Motherfucker, she thought as she closed her eyes.

It took longer than usual for her to dematerialize, to the point where she thought she might have to go the mist route. Shadows had the option of traveling over the ground in a vapor, something that required less concentration, but was also less efficient, than the complete ghosting out. Her brain was scrambled, and the cooking scents from the blowers on the roof, coupled with the crunching of tires over the ice as guests arrived up in front, made focusing even harder.

She’d ruined it. All of it.

Because she’d just had to get involved in shit that wasn’t her business—

Her corporeal form finally broke apart and she traveled in a scatter of molecules through the night. When she re-formed, it was in the woods by the river, just north of the clearing where she’d left the body.

The scene could well still be active. Who the fuck knew.

It wasn’t.

No bright lights glowing as lab techs in white suits took pictures of tire treads and tweezered individual hair fibers. No battle-weary detectives smoking on the perimeter, frowns on their faces as they pieced things together. No uniformed patrolmen regulating access. No cop-bots recording everything with their camera eyes and their audio ears.

She stepped carefully through the snow, allowing the brilliant moonlight to be her guide versus getting out her phone flashlight and giving away her position.

But what was she hiding from. Nobody was here.

Then again, she’d been ducking her true identity around humans for her whole life, and staying on the down-low had always served her well.

As she stopped on the clearing’s periphery, the aftermath of the daylight activity made her think of ants all over a picnic. Tributaries of footprints linked up and formed proper paths around and inside a ring of bright yellow tape, and there were plenty of tire grooves clogging up the broad running path she’d come down in her truck. She could just imagine the lineup of Caldwell PD–branded patrol cars and CSI vans, and all the accompanying personnel.

Needless to say, no body.

And no knife. Because, hello, it had been sticking out of the corpse—

Later, she would wonder what called her attention to the river. It wasn’t a scent or a sound. A sixth sense, maybe.

What she was clear on, as she turned toward the shoreline, was she instantly knew who was standing there, staring across the ice-encrusted Hudson.

She waited for the male from the night before to look over his shoulder. When he didn’t, she cursed.

“None of your business,” she muttered to herself.

After a moment, Denne shook her head and started walking. Toward him, not away.

She wasn’t quiet about her approach. Even deliberately stepped on a couple of branches, and coughed once or twice.

The male didn’t so much as twitch.

When she was just three feet behind him, she stopped and looked around his heavy arm. His focus was on a glass house directly across the river. The modern place was built into the bend of a peninsula, the levels stacking up and no doubt offering incredible views. Most of the expanse had drapes pulled, but there were a couple of rooms you could see into—and sure enough, there was a lean, blond female in a winter-white skirt suit walking around the elegantly decorated interior.

Given the window coverings, it had to be another vampire.

“Who is she?” Denne blurted.

Annnnnd that was when the shit hit the fan.

The male spun around, bared his fangs, and let out an unholy growl. As he sank into his thighs like he was going to bite her face off, she jumped back and went for her old-fashioned revolver inside her jacket. Except it was too late for that. No way she could get the weapon up and cocked before he attacked—

The male recoiled, and the change came over him immediately, his huge body freezing in place, his nostrils flaring as if he were testing her scent on the air, his upper lip dropping back down as his eyes softened. The shift was so quick and complete, it was eerie. And also a reminder that aggression in males was nothing to be toyed with. She was a strong female, and with her gun, she probably could fend him off. If she hadn’t been armed, though, and they’d gone hand-to-hand?

She’d have done some damage, sure. On the way to losing.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a deeper voice than she remembered. “But you shouldn’t sneak up on people. It’s dangerous.”

Denne narrowed her eyes and lowered the gun—but didn’t put the thing away. There was something very, very different about him tonight. He was in the same gray hoodie and jeans—or versions of the same as they were bloodstain free now. Hair was the same, face, too. But she didn’t recognize him at all.

“What’s going on,” she said with a frown.

The male turned back around and seemed to forget she was there. Except then he replied, “You should go. It’s not safe here.”

“Nah, the humans won’t be back until it’s light out. If they even return.” In a wry tone, she tacked on, “Looks like they’ve gone through every square inch of this acreage with a microscope.”

He shook his head. “Not humans you need to worry about.”

She waited for him to finish, but he just stood there in the cold wind, staring across the river like whoever was in that glass house was the only thing that existed in the whole fucking world.

In a low tone, Denne prompted, “Are you stalking her because you’re in love or because you’re going to kill her.”

Like she needed another female-anything to save. And no, she wasn’t jealous. Jesus.

Like, not at all.

The male didn’t even look over again. “You need to go.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

And then she waited for him to keep talking.

Oh, damn it, what the hell was wrong with her? She’d spent her life staying out of trouble and keeping to herself.

“It’s just now,” she murmured, “I gotta know what’s happening here.”

“I have to protect her.”

Denne positioned herself so she could measure his profile. “From what.”

“The enemy.”

His voice was nearly inaudible, his affect too calm, his body too still. The fixation was fucking disturbing and she started to think he might be suffering some kind of psychotic break.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Allhan.”

None of the kind-of-charming, boyish-awkward routine. This was a fully grown male, who was goddamn serious about whatever he was doing.

“So what’s your deal, Al.” As she kept shit casual, she put her free hand in her pocket and made sure she had her cell phone against her palm. “Whatcha really doing out here now. Why’d you come last night.”

“You have to go.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I’m not going to.” On the far side of the river, the female walked out of a professionally appointed kitchen, and reappeared several windows down in a parlor. “See, I don’t really have anywhere I need to be. So how about you tell me what’s going on.”

It was a long while before he cranked his head around, and those eyes. Holy shit, those eyes. They were dead. No light in them at all.

“What the hell happened to you,” she breathed as he looked back out to the river.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Every time Allhan blinked, all he saw were the bodies in the snow from the night before. And when he breathed in through his nose, it wasn’t fresh, cold air going in and out of his sinuses. It was blood; all he could smell was the blood. And then there were his hands. His hands were warm and sticky from trying to stop the bleeding at the throat, and his heart was pounding because he knew that there was nothing he could do.

No way of saving the male who’d spoken in such a rush.

Like he was fully aware that he was dying and determined to get some of the story out. So his friends might be rescued.

“Al? What’s going on here. Is there someone I can call for you?”

The sound of his name was like an echo from another world, and as he turned his head again, he felt as though he was looking at the female through a fog. The longer he stared at her, though, the clearer she became, until he was able to finally connect to the present. To where he actually was, as opposed to where he’d been last night.

Details registered. She’d kept her gun out, and her other hand was in the pocket of her black parka as if she had another weapon in there. Or maybe a phone? Her stance was tense and her dark eyes steady not because she was calm, but because she was measuring him as a threat.

It was strange, he thought. Reading emotions had never been a strong suit for him. In fact, for the longest time, it had been impossible for him to define the positions of eyes and mouths, and translate the countless orientations into meanings.

His father had despised his social failings. His sister had pitied them.

And he had been determined to learn that which had come so easily to everybody else around him.

As a consequence, he was an expert at them now.

“You have nothing to fear from me.”

“Damn right I don’t.” Her smile was cold, but it was to hide the fact that he had actually rattled her a little. “But that’s about me and not you.”

Allhan shook his head and looked back at the glass house. There was no reason to talk to her about anything, much less argue a fact so immutable it was practically one of the laws of physics. There were plenty of things he wanted to hurt right now, but not her. Never her. And actually, if she wouldn’t leave the clearing, he could always just reposition farther down the river. In case the slayer somehow knew he was here.

The problem? He found himself wanting to explain… something.

Even though he couldn’t tell her much—

“Six males I knew were killed last night by lessers,” he said roughly. When she gasped, he rubbed his aching sternum. “I wasn’t, like, really close to them, but I… was the one who found four of them outside of a club downtown.”

“I’m really fucking sorry.” When he just nodded, she cleared her throat. “Shit.”

“Yeah.” He glanced at both his hands and saw them stained with blood. “That just about covers it. And you know, I thought… it was bad. Like, last night, when I came here. I knew… it was bad, like, fuck. But the two of them who were kidnapped were… worked on, if you know what I mean.”

As she muttered a curse, he didn’t know why the hell he kept going. “They were taken… somewhere… and tortured. The bodies were found just before dawn.”

He looked back at his sister’s safe house. The one he hadn’t known about. The one he’d had to find in the databases when it became clear she hadn’t gone to Theo’s after all.

“The two males were tortured for information.”

That was as far as he could go. One, because he didn’t want this female to know too much. And two, he had a sudden, absurd conviction that he could ensnare her in this nightmare with him if he kept talking.

“You think slayers are going to find her,” the female said.

Oh, no, he thought. He was very sure they already had.

He’d never considered the fact that even though he might not know Shuli’s friends, they could very well know Carmen and his family. He had been born twenty years after his sister so they’d never run in the same circles—and he hadn’t had a circle. But Carmen and Theo had had an active social life, and the aristocracy was a small club.

That fucking slayer had tortured those two males to find out details about her.

And had gotten them.

It said a lot about how much the Lessening Society knew of vampires that they’d navigated the opportunity with those males as they had. And the unmistakable conclusion was that if Allhan hadn’t been with Shuli and his friends at the club, the six of them would still be alive.

And his sister’s whereabouts in her glass house would still be unknown.

“So why aren’t you going over there,” the female next to him asked. “And taking her away?”

Breaking off from her, Allhan walked back through the trees, to the yellow tape that had been strung around the clearing. As he regarded the disturbed snow, the tire grabs, the bloodstains where the body had been, he had such an incredible pain behind his sternum, he wondered if he was having heart trouble.

“Why did you kill that human,” he asked, knowing she’d followed him.

She was not going to want to talk about her situation. Maybe invasive questions would get her to go.

“He was hurting a woman.”

Allhan twisted around and frowned. “What do you mean, ‘hurting.’ ”

“I shouldn’t have gotten involved.” She came closer, her boots crunching through the uneven ice pack. “It was just some customer at the place I work. I didn’t know her. But she needed my help, and after I went into her mind and saw what he did to her, there was no way I could let him live. Some things… just have to be handled.”

Abruptly, he thought of sterling silver candlesticks.

“I agree,” he heard himself say.

And then they just stayed where they were, their eyes meeting.

“Why did you come back here tonight?” he asked.

“I made a mistake.” A hint of a hard smile lifted her lips. “Not about security cameras. Those I did take care of.”

Allhan nodded. “You forgot to take the knife with you when you left. Don’t worry, I pulled it out of him and went to the bridge. It’s at the bottom of the river. No one is ever going to find your murder weapon.”

The exhale that left her was slow and surprised.

“Salvatore’s Restaurant. Right on the handle.” He turned back to the clearing. “But like I said, you don’t have to worry about it. There are bubblers around all the bridge supports to keep the ice away. I watched it sink with my own eyes.”

“Why did you do that… why did you help me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve got a soft spot for females in peril, too.”

“I was not in peril.”

Even with everything going on, he had to smile to himself. “If the humans had found that knife, they would have immediately gone back to the restaurant you work at, and who knows what would have happened. Have you told the owner that you’re a vampire or was that not something covered during your employment interview.”

“It didn’t come up,” she muttered dryly.

“Mmm. Best it stays that way.”

In the silence that followed, the wind moved around them, drawing the pine boughs in and out of position in waves, whiffling the snow that was still loose because the temperature remained so low. In a strange, profound way, her mere presence calmed him, helped him breathe.

Even though it didn’t change the mess he was in.

The deadly danger his sister was in.

Six months since their father had been in the grave, and he was was still screwing them both. Then again, nothing had worked out as he’d planned. Nothing.

“Well, fuck,” she said in a low voice. “Looks like I owe you.”

Denne turned back to the glass house. The female was no longer in sight, and she had a sudden, irrational fear that a slayer was inside and whoever Al was worried about was being killed right now.

Actually, it wasn’t irrational.

“Why aren’t you going over there?” she asked.

In her peripheral vision, he rubbed his temples like he was trying to rotate the tires on his brain. “I can’t. She… hates me, and she has good reason to.”

“Trouble with exes, huh.” Denne shrugged. “So I’ll go over.”

His eyes snapped toward her. “You cannot—”

“Sure I can. I’ll knock on the door, make sure she’s okay, and tell her she needs to find a safe house.”

Al shook his head like he was having a seizure. “That is her safe house. And it’s too dangerous—”

“I’m really good at taking care of myself. Besides, that’s not how I die.”

There was a shocked pause. “Excuse me?”

“Long story. But I do not die in a glass house on the shores of the Hudson River one night after my life is over.”

“I’m sorry—I’m totally not following.”

She smiled for half a second. “Like I said, it’s a long story. Looks like both of us had bad news last night.”

“You’re not going over there.”

As she stared at the house, she felt him focus on her, and as much as she tried to deny it, she liked the attention.

“Do you know what I am, Al?” She glanced back at him. “A vampire, yes, but what kind of vampire I am?”

When he shook his head, she nodded. “I’m going to show you a little trick. It took me years to be able to do this, and I haven’t really shown this off to many people…”

Try any, she tacked on to herself.

“But I want you to look at me.” She kept the gun out, but released her cell phone and patted at her parka. “You see me, right? I’m standing in front of you. Right?”

As he inclined his head, she lowered her voice. “I want you to keep staring at me. Just keep those eyeballs right… where… they… are.”

Between one blink and the next, she projected herself so that a slice of her life-force was behind him.

“I’m also over here, Al.”

He wheeled around and almost tripped over his feet. “What the fuck—”

Denne lifted a hand and waved at him. In her mind, she had a split screen of sight, seeing him both face-on and from the back, and she could also see both versions of herself, project her voice in both places, move wherever she wanted to.

“I’m a Shadow,” she explained as she sent the image of her walking back around. “It’s called astro-projection.”

“Some of us can do it,” the other her chimed in.

“Well, not many,” she hedged as the main her stayed where she was.

“You need to have the knack to begin with—”

“And it has to be developed,” she finished as the two of her stood side by side. “But when I say I can go over there safely, I assure you, it’s not a problem.”

With that, she absorbed the projection back into herself.

Al, bless him, leaned forward like he either wanted to see her better—or he was about to poke her in the shoulder to make sure she was real.

“How the hell did you do that?” he asked.

“It’s a lot like dematerializing, except you only send a part of yourself through the air, not the whole thing. The projection is me, but not. I know where I actually am, and I can see, interact, and move around in the other place, even though that’s not really me.”

“A Shadow,” he whispered with a kind of awe. “I had heard of your kind, but I’ve never met one before. You. I mean—fuck. That sounds bad, it’s coming out all wrong.”

“Don’t stress. I know what you mean. And we keep to ourselves mostly. There’s a long tradition of not leaving the Territory.”

“And yet you work in a human restaurant?”

“No, my father owns it.” She smiled again. “He was given it over thirty years ago because he loves to cook. He’d still be there if he could, but a ‘man’ who looks as young as the night he walked in, after three decades? He had to step aside for a little while.”

Abruptly, she put her palms out to pump the brakes. “I’m no cook, to be clear. I just run the numbers, keep the trains going, help out when I can.”

His face softened. “Especially women when they need you.”

“Yeah,” she said with defeat. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into me.”

“Maybe you’re just a true female of worth. And that’s what people like you do.”

Denne shook her head. “No, I don’t know what it is.”

What she was clear on was that she owed this male. Huge. “Anyway, how about I go over there and help out that female you love so much.”

As Al just stared at her, a strange emotion curled in her gut, and the twisting, aggressive drive was so strong, she found it impossible to ignore—even though it was something she’d never felt before.

Assuming she was clocking the shit right, though, she knew what it was.

Jealousy.

Which was totally nuts.

There was absolutely no reason for her to envy some female she didn’t know over a male she’d run into by mistake out here in the fucking woods.

“So what’s it going to be?” she prompted.

Al stepped into her, and as she had to let her head fall back so she could still meet his eyes, she found the difference in their heights kind of mesmerizing. And then there was the size of him. For all of the male’s awkwardness, his body was well muscled, and she knew that as time went on, he was going to continue to put on more weight because he’d just been through the change.

Abruptly, she wondered what his chest looked like, bare and bathed in soft light. And his abs… and his—

“I can’t have you hurt, too.” He slowly shook his head. “I’ve already got so many people involved in this.”

“Involved in what?”

When he looked away sharply, she stomped a boot in frustration. But then she found herself looking into his pale blue eyes. They were a nice version of the color, like aquamarine gems. And around them, his lashes were thick and long, crowding at the far corners in a way that might have been a little feminine, except for the heavy brows he had.

“Will you finally let me know your name?” he said in a low, velvety voice.

Denne’s heart skipped a beat. “Names don’t mean anything.”

“No? Then share yours with me, if that’s true.”

“Dennesha.”

He closed his eyes as if savoring the sound. “What a beautiful name.” Then his lips parted, like maybe his chest was getting tight. “Dennesha.”

“Denne, for short. Like the restaurant.”

His lids slowly lifted and the glow in those eyes of his was so intense, she felt like taking off her parka. Before she spontaneously combusted.

“You know what I’m thinking about right now?” she heard her- self say.

When he shook his head, his stare drifted down and focused on her mouth.

“Oh, I think you do, Al.” She reached up to his face and brushed his lower lip with her thumb. “I think you know exactly what’s on my mind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

i Am didn’t like lies. Whether they were bald-faced or of the omission variety, spoken right to his face or something whispered behind his back, he really hated false shit. Especially if he was the one who was lying.

And particularly if it was to his daughter.

Okay yeah, sure, he and Catra did intend to talk to her about everything. But they’d been sitting on this mess for twenty-four hours, and he still didn’t know how to bring it all up.

As he sat at the modest table in the alcove of his and Catra’s simple, unadorned private quarters, he glanced across the shallow space at his mate. His beloved shellan was over on the comfy couch, staring blankly at whatever was in front of her. At the moment, it happened to be the TV that rarely got turned on, but earlier it had been the book in her lap.

The silence was getting to him, but he didn’t have anything to break it with that was worth the syllables.

Things had been like this since about four in the afternoon. No, that wasn’t right. It had been like this since Denne had come home late from the restaurant, and checked in as she always did at the end of the night. Their daughter had seemed off, but they’d both agreed they weren’t discussing anything until they had a better sense of the implications of it all.

Denne was going to have questions. They had to be prepared to give answers.

“I don’t know,” Catra murmured. “I might be reading the charts wrong.”

“I doubt it.”

This was the non-starter conversation they’d been having over and over, the same words exchanged, the silences in between growing longer and longer. The impotent chatter released some pressure, but the reality that nothing was getting any clearer and hours were passing into an inevitable was making them both nuts.

“It just doesn’t make sense.” Catra sat forward and stared at him squarely. “Our charts, yours and mine, have been the same our entire lives. And last night, you and I both looked at the mapping t’On did for her after she survived her transition. Last night’s shooting stars were correct for their timing and the directions they came from. And you saw me sketch the constellations as they appeared at nine nineteen, and I overlaid them on her transition’s chart. They were an exact match—you saw that.”

He nodded, even though they’d been through this before.

“The rest of the prediction is clear,” she concluded. “Denne is to mate t’On and the s’Hisbe will survive another thousand years. If not… everything ends.”

Again, iAm nodded because what could he say? All of that was true.

His mate shook her head. “So why aren’t you and I in her post-transition chart? No matter what she does?”

It was a rhetorical that he was not going to answer. Well, he could, but none of the replies were going to make either of them feel any better.

Catra got to her feet and paced around like she was trying to solve pi to seven thousand decimals.

One of the things iAm loved most about their private space was that it wasn’t some royally appointed, silk-and-satin showcase. When Catra had assumed the throne after her mother’s death, she’d demolished everything that horrible female had erected—except for the Constellation Room. During the rebuilding, his mate had known that the citizenry expected a certain level of grandiosity for their Queen and her Prince Consort, but she’d also recognized that times were changing. So she had given them a luxe royal seat, but it was behind a facade that faked out the humans.

And for their precious, private home, she’d kept it real, not regal. Here, there were velvety, deep-blue walls, and comfortable furniture, and handmade throw blankets that were gifts from Cormia and the Chosen. The kitchen was stocked with all the staples he needed to cook with for his Queen and their daughter, and the bedroom and bathroom they shared were cleaned by their good selves.

Their commitment to remain down-to-earth and grounded in regular life was something that bonded them. When you had thousands of people worshipping a version of yourself, when you were surrounded by genuflection and praise, it was hard to truly stay connected. To your mate. To your daughter. To the real concerns of the people you served.

“I don’t want to go to t’On before…”

As she let her words drift, iAm nodded. “We have to talk to Denne first. We have to show her the chart.”

“And what are we going to say when she sees we’re not on it?”

“The chart’s about her.” Except he knew that wasn’t going to deflect their daughter. “And t’On’s never said anything about the absence of us.”

Which also didn’t mean a damn thing.

“He was very relieved when I put it away and didn’t want to talk about it.”

iAm nodded. “That’s because he doesn’t want to get mated.”

“Is it? Or is it because he doesn’t know how to tell his Queen that she’s going to die? You know how loyal he is.”

iAm rubbed his exhausted eyes. “Maybe it’s just that you’re not on the throne. As I said last night, that would explain why our charts are the way ours are.”

“True.” She shook her head. “And what is read can change. Also, my worry is not about me keeping the throne. I will serve as long as I’m able, as long as I’m supposed to, and when it’s time to let it go, I’ll do so readily.”

Dropping his hands, he murmured gravely, “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you.”

His beautiful mate stopped and looked over at him. “I love you, too.”

“Listen to me—and I have to say this. If you and I are supposed to live a simple life? I have no problem with that at all. I’ll bring you coffee and crullers for the next five centuries and be perfectly happy. It’s never been about some crown for me, or the power that comes with it.”

Catra came across with an urgency, and searched his face. “Do you mean that? I mean, I know that you do. I just—”

“I mated you for you.” He put his hands on her hips. “If anything, the royal stuff is a complication that gets in the way of us actually being together.”

Her eyes closed briefly. And then she bent down and pressed her lips to his. “You are the most important thing. You and Denne. Nothing else matters more.”

As sadness entered her eyes, he knew exactly what she was thinking before she said in a helpless way, “I don’t want to die. And I also don’t want to give her the throne as things are now.”

iAm kept his mouth shut about the death stuff. Of course, one answer was to have t’On do an update on their own charts. But shit, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more.

He’d learned his lesson, thanks to this nightmare with Denne’s update, fuck him very much.

And when it came to the throne, Catra had a point about how things had been going lately. Even though the s’Hisbe had remained fairly cohesive and connected, humans had grown increasingly invasive in the last decade. With their monitoring capabilities ramping up year by year, the privacy and seclusion the s’Hisbe had always relied on was being challenged on so many fronts: Documentaries on “a secret sect,” probes by government officials, intrusions on lands around the Territory with those data centers. As Queen, Catra was sequestered from interacting with those rats without tails for obvious reasons and so was he. A rotating committee of representatives did what they could when the outreach couldn’t be avoided, but the unease had been mounting. And so had the threats.

Things were not what they used to be.

“I just can’t shake this feeling of dread,” Catra whispered. “But it’s like the real danger is inside the boundary.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been dreaming about…”

When she drifted, he captured her hands. “About what? Since when?”

Catra tried to break away, but he shifted her into his lap and stroked her braids. “Talk to me,” he said.

“I have this dream about a dark figure coming into our room. I’m awake, but I can’t move. I feel like I’m drugged or something… and then the fire starts. There’s flames, all around me, and I look over—and you’re…”

“What,” he demanded. When she glanced away, he touched her chin and brought her eyes back to his. “You need to finish this. I need to know.”

“It’s just a dream.”

An ice-cold fear set up shop, right in the cradle of his soul.

“Finish it,” he said in a low voice. “Tell me the whole thing.”

Tears spilled from his beloved’s eyes. “You’re dead. Your throat is… cut. It’s as I start to scream that the fire consumes me.”

As his shellan collapsed into his chest, iAm wrapped his arms around her and stared across their happy little home, the place where they had spent so many years, cocooned away from the larger cares and responsibilities that were waiting just outside the door. The strength of their love had made these four walls and a ceiling feel like a for- tress.

He glanced across at the door and decided the steel panels with their dead bolts were as flimsy as a sheet of paper.

That fucking light show last night wasn’t a pair of random meteors.

It was two cursed stars, falling on them all.

After a while, Catra looked up at him. “We know nothing for sure. So we tell Denne the absence is me not being on the throne. And beyond that, I submit to our fate, whatever it may be.”

iAm dropped his mouth to his mate’s. He was prepared to protect his shellan with everything he had in him.

But no mortal lived forever.

“Me, too,” he said grimly.

God, he hated this whole thing.

He really did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In the clearing by the Hudson River, Allhan stared down at the female in front of him, and talk about splitting and projection. Half of him wanted to make sure she left here and never, ever went anywhere near his sister’s glass house. The other half of him wanted…

A thrust of what he’d woken up with thickened behind the fly of his jeans.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said in a voice that was so deep, he was sure it was someone else’s.

He certainly felt like his body belonged to a stranger. His muscles seemed to be swelling up all around his bones, and his skin was hypersensitive to the clothes he had on, the cold in the air, the breeze that passed between them. As he breathed in through his nose, it was like he was drawing this female inside of him, and he needed her more than air.

Meanwhile, an infinity stretched out between them, one where he felt heavy on the ground and yet floating in space, full of purpose but free of burden. All he wanted, all he needed, was to kiss her.

As if pulled by some invisible force, he found himself bending down—

Denne stepped back and cleared her throat. “I was thinking how now that we’ve been properly introduced, I could go save your girlfriend.”

The distance between their bodies was just a yard, but it was also a million miles. And as the urgency that had taken him over ebbed, Allhan felt chilled in a way that had nothing to do with the temptation.

But at least his brain snapped back to attention. “No,” he said roughly. “You can’t do that.”

A week. The lesser had said he had a week.

And though you couldn’t trust the enemy, he knew he could put his faith in what that slayer wanted and how the bargain had been set. He also saw now that his own intelligence and belief in his ability to construct and control outcomes had led to an arrogant blind spot that had proved deadly: Because Shuli’s friends hadn’t recognized him, he’d assumed that nothing could be traced back to his sister.

But the lesser knew who their father was, knew the surname, the former address. No doubt knew what Carmen looked like from scoping out their mansion from before. And the enemy had no clue that Allhan had buried his old identity, and the people he was with now were not, in fact, his nearest and dearest.

Tracing Carmen’s location, from fellow members of the glymera while under torture, would not have been that hard. Had not been that hard.

He should have seen this coming. Should have stayed away from Shuli and the others.

And that was why he needed to never see this female again.

Denne crossed her arms and shook her head. “There’s no shame in asking for help.”

For a second, he had to catch up with her words. It was not shame he was worried about.

“I don’t want you to be in danger.” He refocused on her beautiful face. “That I cannot live with. And before you say you won’t be, I believed that about… other things, and it turned out I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong.”

There was a pause. “God, you remind me of myself.”

“How so?”

“You do the right thing, even if it’s stupid.” She shrugged. “So okay, fine. How’m I going to even our score, Al? I settle my debts, that’s how it is.”

“There’s no debt to settle. You took care of that woman and fate put me here last night to take care of you with the knife.”

She frowned. “What about you, though.”

“I’m working off my own debts.”

“And what are they?”

As his eyes drifted down to her mouth, his blood thundered. “Well… right now, there are some things I want to do that I shouldn’t. Not at all.”

“Oh?” One of her brows lifted. “Such as.”

There was a deliberate defiance to her, and that turned him on even more. “She’s my sister, by the way,” he said in a low growl. “Carmen is my sister.”

Those lids lowered so that she stared up from under her lashes. “Is she.”

“Yeah.”

There was a long moment. And then Denne’s lips lifted in a smile that held all kinds of promise. “So what’s your next move, Al.”

“I want to kiss you.”

The chuckle was soft. “Oh, my God, how romantic. Right here, next to a crime scene. I mean, really, it’s what every girl dreams about.”

Oh, God, he was messing this all up. “I’m so sorry—”

When he went to step back, she captured his hand and laughed. “It’s a joke, Al.”

He nodded awkwardly. “I’m not good at reading situations.”

Glancing out at the glass house, he thought that had never been more true. Why had he ever assumed he could win at this dangerous game he was playing with that slayer? And what was he doing with this incredible female? He was in so far over his head, he was next-level drowning.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” she murmured. “You had a presence of mind last night that I sure as hell didn’t.”

Looking back at her, he knew he was going to remember this forever. How the wind moved through the ends of her hair, and she blinked really slowly, and the way she stood so still and confident as he continued to stare at her.

“Denne, can I say something that’s going to fuck this all up?”

A wave of laughter went through his ears and directly into his nervous system. “Well, in case you’ve forgotten, last night, I lost my truck and almost brought the entire CPD down on my own neck. So I’m setting a pretty high standard for tits up out here—”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he blurted. “All day long, you were on my mind. Even while I was sleeping.”

He redacted the part about how he’d woken up.

There was a pause. “She really your sister? Or are you just saying that.”

“She is my only close relation. My sister.”

“Why does she hate you?”

“Long story.”

When there was another stretch of quiet and he lifted his brows, she laughed again with that purring sound. “What, you think I’m going to bug you to tell me all your gory details? Nah, I have long stories of my own. No reason to bring anybody’s up out here.”

As the winter wind continued to swirl around them, she stepped forward again, but this time it was fully into his body. Alllllll the way against him.

Holy. Fuck. If things had been kindling with space between them, now the need to get on top of her, to penetrate, to be inside of her, bonfire’d in his veins and blanked out everything.

“Al,” she whispered in a husky way. “Have you done this before?”

He shook his head like the dumb idiot he was.

“No?” A frown flickered across her brows. “Nothing? No… anything, then. Even during your transition?”

“No,” he said.

And P.S., he really didn’t want to dwell on his transition right now. Although it was weird. Up until last night, he’d had Lyric on his mind constantly, both before she’d given him her vein and afterward. But ever since he’d met Denne?

He had a new obsession, apparently.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked him softly.

God, how to answer that. “Would I freak you out if I said… I’ve never needed anything more.”

There was an ancient quality to the smile that bloomed across her beautiful dark face. “It should. But it doesn’t.”

Allhan felt like they were balanced on a cloud, high above the earth, each of them tipping forward toward a plunge that was going to change everything. Or at least it was going to change him.

Denne lifted up onto her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve never been someone’s first before.”

With that, she sealed their mouths, and Allhan groaned at the sensation. All at once, he knew nothing but the soft, warm pull against his lips, her scent of arousal in his nose, the pounding of his own blood. And she was patient when he fumbled a little, not knowing how to dance with the kiss. She just coached him by example, sucking and caressing and licking—and go figure, he was a quick learner.

Someone was moaning.

Him? Yes, it was him.

No… that wasn’t a moan. He was growling.

With need.

Denne was so one hundred percent in, it was a revelation. She’d never particularly thought much about what she was into sexually. Over the last ten years, she’d gone home with a human man once or twice, more from curiosity than any kind of real desire. Well, curiosity and maybe some rebellion. The fumblings in the dark had been performative and boring, and when the inevitable can-I-see-you-agains had come, she’d wiped their memories like she was cleaning off a countertop.

But this?

This she wanted. This massive male, who was totally fucking turned on, who had all the muscle and all the erection, who was ready to come with just a kiss… who needed someone to teach him about his own body.

Someone to teach him about a female’s.

This she was fucking into.

And when she felt like she needed a proper, deep breath, Denne eased back and relished what she saw: Those pale blue eyes were glassy, there was a flush on his cheeks, and he was panting like he’d been running.

Except then she glanced around at the clearing, saw the bloodstains in the snow and all the yellow tape, and was reminded of that good ol’ not-the-right-place, not-the-right-time thing.

“Give me your phone,” she commanded.

Al went into the pockets of his sweatshirt like he was looking for world peace in there, and came out with two phones.

“Which do you want me to use?” she said.

He looked down in confusion and put one of them away. “This Samsung.”

She took the thing. “I’m an Apple girl myself. Smile for the camera.”

He looked so confused, she wondered whether facial recognition was even going to work. But it did: As she put the screen up to his face, she knew by the change of light that the thing had opened.

Going into his contacts, she started entering her name and number.

“We’re not allowed to have Apple anything.”

She glanced up. “Says who?”

“The male in charge of things like that.”

“Well, if I ever meet him, he and I are going to have a debate.” She gave the cell back to him. “Call me during the day. We’ll talk.”

“I would like that.” He cleared his throat. “I would like… to get to know you better.”

“Well, I promise you one thing.” Denne put her hand on one of his pecs. “You and I are going to get to know you very much better.”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

Like she was doing him a favor. Except she had every intention of getting just as much out of it as he did.

Yes, the timing sucked. But this might be her last chance to do something she chose—and wanted.

“You’re so polite,” she murmured. “And I like your accent.”

“I don’t have one.”

Denne shrugged. “Well, it sounded like that just now. Whatever. I like your voice, too. It’s very deep.”

She went back up on her tiptoes. “I’m going to like the way it sounds when you beg me to touch you.”

As he gasped, she put her mouth back where it had been. And he might not have had any experience, but the male had picked up things quick. He instantly responded the way she’d taught him to, mirroring the way she kissed him, letting her lick her way into him.

“Put your arms around me,” she said against his lips. “Pull me in. Tighter.”

His hands were broad and gentle on her waist, and she leaned in on his tentative direction, her breasts pressing into the intractable wall of his chest through her parka. God, she wished there were less clothes involved here, she really fucking did. Especially as she found the nape of his neck under the folds of his sweatshirt’s hood. His hair was soft and silky against her fingers. Warm, too.

“Tighter,” she ordered. “Closer.”

There was some fumbling as his palms dropped to the small of her back—and briefly went lower. To encourage him, she covered one of them with her own and placed it right on her ass.

The groan that vibrated against her mouth was oh, so satisfying. And then like the good student he was, he put his other hand down there and—

His arousal was a hard rigid at the front of his jeans, and through her black work slacks, she could feel it. Proud. Thick. Long.

Arching further into him, she rolled her hips and enjoyed an instant tightening of his hands. The power in his grip was immediately apparent, and in her mind, she had them back at her private quarters at the s’Hisbe—

No, that was never going to work.

Her cabin. Yes, that was it. She could imagine them at her cabin, up against one of the uneven, rough walls, him pinning her there as she snuck under his clothes and ran her—

With a laugh, she separated their mouths. Then she stepped back for a second time.

What do you know. She was breathing hard, too.

“Do you want me to call you?” he said with the kind of awe that made her feel like Cleopatra. “Like, really.”

She wiped off his lower lip. “Guess you’ll find out if you hit me up, huh.”

As she dematerialized away, he was nodding like she’d asked him if he wanted to win the lottery, and she wasn’t going to lie. She’d been feeling like her whole life was over courtesy of those two fucking stars from the night before.

Kissing Al?

Made it seem like she had something to live for.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Vishous re-formed, it was on a plowed driveway by just the cutest little fucking cottage bullshit you ever did see. But the King’s Audience House wasn’t the only structure on the property. A red barn that was so huge it had clearly coined the whole “big-as-a-barn” thing was twelve times the size of the fake farmhouse. He wasn’t going into FT Headquarters to check with his IT staff yet, though.

And not just because he was almost late for the meeting Wrath had called.

Allhan was back at the Wheel, still racked out after the horrible shit from the night before. The fact that the male wasn’t currently at his desk stripped off any urgency to roll-call the other teams and the assignments—and was yet another insight, not that he was looking for it, into exactly how much that one particular male took up space in V’s head.

Rent-free.

V glowered and pulled a pivot. As he went for the Audience House’s back door, he wasn’t limping. Much. And thanks to his mahmen’s intelligent design of vampires and their ability to heal, his nose had gone a long way to getting back to normal as well. No more bandage required, and the fact that he had two black eyes? Who cared.

He could rock the Goth and fit in with Qhuinn’s purple hair.

The rear entrance to the facility was one of the many security points he’d created, and as he eyed the dumbass wreath that was currently a circle of tangled bare birch branches set with cardinal birds and fucking cranberries, he wanted to tear the damn thing off and stomp on it. His hands were tied, however, as it was part of the setup, the ruse, the no-worries-you’re-safe-here routine. To that end, there was also a matching one on the front entry the civilians used, and Fritz took special pride in reflecting the seasons and the various human holidays with them. V didn’t give a rat’s ass about making people feel comfortable. He was interested in the shit that mattered, the shit that actually kept everybody safe, as opposed to just created the illusion of safety.

But if he ever did anything to one of those wreaths? Fritz’s lower lip would quiver, and V was a tough guy, but there were limits to even what he could withstand.

In order to access the Audience House from the rear, there were three different checkpoints to get through, the back-to-back sequence requiring passage granted by his staff at each successive steel door. In between, the contained spaces were under the total control of his team, especially the one in which he could, if he had to, neutralize any threat through chemical agents.

Standing on the stoop, he looked into the security camera eye that was so tiny, if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t spot it under the eaves. And then he waited. Even though he was the architectural mastermind of it all, he followed the rules like everybody else, waiting for clearance to be given.

It was fucking inconvenient. But with safety came—

V stepped into the first containment space and glanced up at the camera. There was a pause, and he was granted the next closet-sized room. And then he waited again.

The last of the steel panels opened, and the smells were total bakery, everything that was flour and butter on a sheet in a three-fifty oven wafting into his sinuses.

Not that he was a big Danish guy.

As the staff stopped what they were doing and turned around with expectation like they were prepared to wallpaper him with cinnamon buns, he reminded himself that, again, making doggen cry was not a look.

“I’m good, true?” he said as he strode out of the kitchen as fast as he could.

The urge to let loose his temper on the cooks was only about the stress he was under, and besides, two seconds of blowing up would just lead to two hours of torture with him having to pull a panicked Fritz out of a tailspin over quality control issues that did not exist. Everything that came out of this kitchen could have taken up window space in a Parisian café. To the point where you had to wonder if the civilians who came here were looking for advice from their King, or calories that came with coffee and jam.

As a public service—so he didn’t run into any of Saxton’s paralegals or other staff—he let himself into the solid steel core of the facility. Just his luck, Hollywood was waiting for him, a big, blond gorgeous mountain of gotcha.

“Here he finally is, Mr. Cheerful.” Rhage grinned around the chocolate Tootsie Pop in his piehole. “And look, no Band-Aid on your Rudolph. What a good little healer.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered as he shoved his way by. “Tohr made it?”

“Yup, he’s in there.” Rhage stepped in behind. “You’re the caboose. Another minute and a half, and I was going to have to go get you and drive you in.”

V opened the access panel. “Spare me.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

The Audience Room was a pine-floored, bulletproof-window’d space with two armchairs in front of a crackling hearth full of birch logs. Currently, the space was SRO with brothers, and Wrath was sitting in his usual ass palace on the left.

No ball slapping, yukking it up this evening. The silence was pin-drop perfect, the air thick as a brick wall, and nobody was smiling.

He had a feeling it was going to be a while before the pre-football-huddle shit started up again.

“Sit,” Wrath announced as he pointed at the chair next to him.

As everybody turned to V, he popped a brow. Apparently the command was for him.

“I’m fine,” he shot back.

“Don’t make me repeat myself. Not tonight.”

Gritting every tooth he had, V kept a round of motherfucker’ing to himself. Except then he saw that Tohr had been planted in a rolling office chair, a ghastly bloom in a flowerpot with lumbar support: The brother did not look good, although he was upright and his eyes were clear.

Fine. If Tohr was being real about where he was at, V could be, too.

He felt like total ass.

Stepping in next to the great Blind King, he tried to hide a grimace as he sat down and every pain receptor he had raised its hand in class. To cut the neurological feedback, he took a hand-rolled out of his leather jacket, and thought of Allhan. There should be absolutely no pride in the fact that the male had decided to try smoking. That was like a meth dealer being excited their kid showed an interest in camping fuel and cat litter.

Still, as he put the cigarette between his teeth and took out a blue Bic, he spun up a fantasy of the pair of them by his forge where he made black daggers. They’d heat some steel, smoke together, and not talk much.

Fuck. That really was a wish he had for them.

For… himself.

A son, true?

Oh, goddamn it, this was not where he needed to be with his life—

“I’ve met with all the parents of the six slain males,” Wrath said. “And the cremations are done.”

There was a stretch of quiet out of respect, then the King continued. “Syphon and Zypher were fucking heroes last night. With help from V’s crew hacking into the city cameras, they tracked down the basement where the two males, Emile and Rolhand, were tortured. Unfortunately, just like the attack scene, everything was so clean. There really was nothing much there. Bloodstains, some torn pieces of clothing. The tools used. Everything has been brought in and catalogued…”

As the King went on with the report, V exhaled and looked over at Butch. The cop was leaning against the wall in the corner, his shoulders flexing under the black Under Armour shirt he wore. With his leather coat folded neatly on the floor at his feet, all his weapons were on display, the crisscross of black dagger holsters and the dull gleam of the guns strapped under his arms and on his hips making him look like an AI-generated version of a kick-ass NPC.

Except the brother was very real.

And so was the nightmare they were all in.

Abruptly, the cop inclined his head, all you-still-good?

God love the guy, he’d spent the day in a chair next to V’s bed, always ready to get a glass of water, or prop pillows, or whatever—and given the amount of sweat equity Butch had put in, there was the temptation to nod and brush shit off.

Instead, V shrugged. Shook his head a little.

The cop flattened his mouth. Then he dug his hand into that skintight shirt, dragged out that heavy Jesus piece, and pressed the cross to his lips. Closing his eyes, he obviously started praying to every saint in the Catholic tradition.

“How’s Allhan?” Wrath asked abruptly.

V came back to attention. The King had turned his head as if he could see, and that cruel face was looking like he wanted to personally find every lesser in the city of Caldwell and tear the undead into bite-sized pieces.

“He’s okay.” No, he wasn’t. “Me and Doc Jane are keeping an eye on him.”

“That was a fucking lot.”

“Yeah.”

The King refocused on the group. “The aristocracy is even more unstable now. These deaths are exactly what we don’t want for so many reasons. We will ahvenge them. We’re going to find those two lessers, and send them back to Dhunhd. Along with all the fucking others.”

As a predatory growl reverberated throughout the room and then talk exploded, V once again thought back to being Allhan’s age and just through the change himself. He’d been in the war camp then, under the iron fist of his sire, the Bloodletter. There was no counting the number of times he’d been left for dead during hand-to-hand “training”—only to have to call on some inner core to stand back up, and keep fighting until he won. Until he was the last one on his feet.

His reward had been being forced to fuck the losers in front of the whole camp until they bled.

He thought of Allhan holding that dying male in his lap in that snowy alley, all alone. Pictured the young male scared and trying to be brave, hand shaking as he called for help.

But he hadn’t left the scene. Even after he’d been told to go home.

He’d stayed until the bodies were bagged and in the back of the van.

Maturity and age were about so much more than flipping sequential pages on a calendar. And last night, Allhan had gone through another kind of explosive transition.

It was supposed to have been all normal, for the both of them: V walking into that red barn after the evening’s check-in with the King, bypassing his teams, going to the far end of the building. Al there like always, his head in a monitor, working as if time had no meaning and whatever he’d been asked to do was the single most important job on the planet.

Instead, that kid had aged a hundred years in a matter of hours. Which was what the first meet-and-greet with death’ll do to a person.

Innocence, gone. As if it had never been.

And the aftermath reality was, no matter what V or Jane or anybody else did, there was no going back to before Al had seen those throat cuts, had smelled the copper of fresh blood, had had his clothing permanently stained.

V had been through so much worse in the war camp.

But it was weird. The shit that had happened to Allhan last night seemed like a hundred thousand times more bloody, more brutal, more damaging—

As he took another drag, he frowned. Everybody had stopped talking and was looking up front. Not at Wrath, though. Their eyes were on V.

“What.”

The King’s voice next to him was very, very even. Too even. “You okay there, my brother?”

“Yeah.” When things stayed stalled, he glared at them all. “We done here? What the fuck?”

From across the room, big bodies started to part as Butch came forward.

“Hey,” the cop said in a quiet voice. “How ’bout you and I take a little breather.”

“What the hell is wrong with everybody?”

And that was when he felt the drip on the back of his gloveless hand. As his eyes shifted down, he stared at the perfectly round, clear spot of water in confusion. Then he looked directly above himself, thinking there was a problem with the roof, a leak somewhere.

“Come on,” Butch murmured as he extended his palm. “Just hang with me for a second.”

Those hazel eyes were sending all kinds of messages, and you know what, V didn’t want any of them. But apparently, the fools had thrown their anchors out.

He shoved the guy’s hand away and got up. “You have lost your damn minds, all of you.”

He was halfway through those big assholes when his hand-rolled burned down to his fingertips. Good. The physical pain gave him something to focus on as opposed to screaming at his brothers.

For no right reason.

Inside the steel core of the facility, he stabbed out the nub, and, for no particular reason, wiped under both eyes with a slash. As he lowered his hands, he didn’t understand the gloss of wetness he was looking at.

“Allhan’s gonna be fine,” he growled as Butch shut them in together. “He’s alive and I’m never letting him go downtown again. Like fucking ever, true?”

When there was no response, he pegged the former cop with a glare. “And I’ve already talked to Mary. She’s going to work with him.”

“Yeah. Good.”

Butch crossed his arms over his black daggers and leaned back against the steel wall. As those hazel eyes stayed steady, and the brother remained calm, V ground his molars.

“Spare me the whole mirror-of-your-actions bullshit,” he muttered. “It’s not working.”

The cop indicated himself. “No reflecting going on here.”

Goddamn it. This was the problem with trahyners.

V paced around in the shallow space, taking out another cigarette, but not lighting it. When he finally quit it with the stomping, he turned to the cop.

“Al should never have been down there,” he said. “In that club, with fucking Shuli. I could kill that motherfucker.”

“Shuli wasn’t even there. He’d left by the time the attack happened.”

“Well, fuck him, he should have been, then.” He pointed at the cop with his rabbit-ear’d fingers. “He could have fought those two slayers off. Shuli’s better than any aristocrat has a right to be with a dagger.”

“He is.”

V narrowed his eyes. “What are you going to do, just stand there and agree with everything I say.”

“Until you get to the truth.”

“Oh, really. And what’s that.”

“You’re not crying for Al—”

“I’m not crying.” He bugged his eyes. “Tears? Where.”

“As I was saying, this is not about what Al went through last night. You know you and Doc Jane, and all of us, will give him everything he needs. And yeah, sure, he won’t be the same, but he’s not alone in this world—”

“No, he’s not.” V poked himself in the sternum. “He’s mine, true? And the Lessening Society fucked with what is mine, so I’m going to—”

“This is not about Al.”

A wave went through V, tripping all kinds of blood-pressure and heart-rate fault lines. In the aftermath, he had to remind himself that he was fundamentally rational. That this emotional trampoline bullshit was, and always had been, a non-starter for him.

“Look.” He put out his gloved hand. “This is not a good time for you and me to play verbal pickleball—”

The cop came over, that stocky body moving with banked power, the creaking of his holsters, the scent of gun oil and cologne, achingly familiar.

The brother reached up, and V felt blunt fingers sweep under one of his eyes and then the other. At least there was no show-and-tell with the moisture.

Butch wiped his hand on the seat of his combat pants. “Just answer me one thing.”

“What.”

“How long did it take for you to think about the war camp.”

V narrowed his stare again. “What the fuck are you talking about.”

“Last night, after you were sure Al was okay, how long did it take you to go back to when you were his age… and where you were when you were just out of your transition.”

About ten minutes, he thought.

Fine, maybe five.

“You know what.” V crossed his own arms over his chest. “How ’bout we go back in there with the King. If my eyes are watering, it’s the injury. My fucking nose was broken—”

“This is just you and me here, V. Nobody else. Not even Jane. Just answer the question.”

That hazel stare was like a lifeboat in a sea of drowning swimmers, and this was the way it had always been between them. For some reason, this former human, this half-breed cousin of Wrath’s, this Dhestroyer prophecy realized, had the ability to see through him in ways that nobody else did. Even his shellan.

Or maybe Jane saw the same things, but didn’t push in the same way.

“How long until you were back in the war camp,” the cop repeated. “Reliving what you saw… what you did. You might as well talk it out. Better than friggin’ crying, right?”

“I was not crying.”

“Tearing up, then. And if you want to keep debating what happened in front of everybody else, fine, but it’s a weak deflection and you know it.”

“Fuck you.” V closed his eyes. “And how did you know.”

“It’s the nature of being a parent. You put yourself where they are, so you can do better by them. And sometimes, when that happens, the past ends up eating you alive.”

Popping his lids back open, V had to clear his throat. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

Well, check him out. He’d spent the first part of knowing Al pretending it was all about the job, and harnessing the kid’s incredible intelligence and facility with programming for the better of the species. And then the second half had been about studiously not acknowledging that he and Jane had taken the male in—and not just in a housing, roof-over-the-head sense.

And now he was here. Admitting a truth that terrified him.

Allhan was his son. Even if that sphinx of a male didn’t think of V as his father.

“Look, all that matters is that I’m going to do right by him.” V turned his hand-rolled around and stared at the unlit tip. “He’s not going to have to go through the horror of war alone. And if I occasionally stroll down memory lane myself, who cares? It’s not like I haven’t thought about my résumé from time to time.”

When Butch didn’t respond, he cocked a brow. “So now that we’ve had that breakthrough, can we go back to the meeting? Yay, for profound shit—”

“There’s another part of it, V.”

Taking his Bic out, he impatiently flicked the wheel over and over again, the spark flaring and dying on repeat. “No, there is not.”

“Yes, there is.” Butch put a hand on V’s shoulder. “Don’t you wish someone had been there for you.”

V felt a sheen of sweat break out across his brow. It was like the cop had peeled all of his skin off on a oner, and then promptly gone to work filleting his muscles off his bones.

That Boston-accented voice was relentless: “Don’t you wish someone older, and stronger, and harder, had protected you. Taken care of you. Let you rest as you recovered, knowing that you were safe and not alone.”

A sensation like a car had been parked on his chest made breathing impossible.

“Fuck you,” V whispered in what sounded like, even to his own ears, a young’s voice.

As everything went blurry, Butch took the Bic out of V’s hand, struck the wheel, and held up a flame at the hand-rolled. “We can’t go back, but fuck. Our kids can make us see shit all over again, until it feels like history’s nightmare is real.”

The only reason V didn’t walk out was because he knew the cop had suffered like this, too. Had been scarred. Had been alone with his own torturous thoughts of the past.

Butch had been the last to see his sister Janie, through the back window of a car, as those boys had driven her off to be gang-raped and murdered.

Lowering his eyes, V tilted his head and brought the cigarette to the flame. It was nearly impossible to draw in a sufficient inhale to make the lighting happen. When he exhaled because there was no more room in his lungs, he was surprised to see a plume of smoke come out.

Killing the flame, Butch put the lighter back in V’s hand. “We see too much of our younger selves in the lives of our children. And yes, it makes us do better if we aren’t pieces of shit. But, God, it fucking hurts.”

Later, V would try to piece out what happened next. Who stepped into who. What else was said—was there anything? Did he speak? Did Butch?

All he knew was that his best friend was holding him.

As he started to weep.

For the young he had once been… and what had been done to him.

Also for a truth that he had refused to think about, and certainly would not be sharing with anybody, ever. Not Butch, not Jane. Because it was too terrifying to contemplate.

Who was he to try to take care of any young male? He’d had no fucking example about how to be a father.

Especially to someone who’d already been deserted in this cold, cruel world.

“I got you,” Butch said roughly. “Just let it out and we never have to speak about this again.”

All V could do was shake his head. The cop knew exactly what he had to hear, and through his swirling sadness, he thought of that first night they’d met, back at Darius’s.

There were strangers you were supposed to have in your life. The way you tripped over them was always coincidental, and the years they stayed proved that family wasn’t about the blood. It was about the bond.

The shit was written in the stars, really.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When Allhan re-formed, it was in front of a sleek modern house that was white as the snow, and stark as the drifts that backed up against its flanks and drape-pulled windows. Talk about blending in. There were no exterior lights on, not even motion-activated ones triggered by his arrival. In the moon’s blue wash of illumination, it looked deserted.

Maybe this was just Shuli’s version of lying low in the midst of humans?

A little shoveled path had been cleared to the front door, and he walked up it feeling like he should be anywhere else.

But he had to do this.

Arriving at the entry, he paused and looked around. Tested the air with his nose. The sense that he was being watched made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he had a sudden thought that he needed a weapon on him. Not that he’d know what to do with it.

Just as he went to hit the summoning bell, the panels opened wide, revealing a black hole of an interior.

Shuli himself was playing the role of butler, and wasn’t that a surprise. The male was also grim as a mortician. “Al, you can’t be here.”

As Allhan’s mind spun with everything he needed to say, he scrambled for words. When he came out with nothing but a weird clicking sound, he thought, fuck, this was worse than even the very worst hypotheticals he’d tried on for size before he’d left the clearing.

“L-look, I just want to say I’m s-sorry—”

“Now’s not the time.” Shuli leaned around and seemed to be searching for something out on the lawn. “We’ll talk later—”

“I’m r-really sorry about—”

“Fuck, will you just go!”

Allhan took a deep breath. He wanted to tell the truth: That it was his fault those males had died. That all of this was his fault.

“I c-can’t, Shuli. I can’t go.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you—”

With a quick grab, Shuli fisted the front of Allhan’s sweatshirt and hauled him into a foyer, slamming the door and putting his back against it.

As Allhan’s keen, post-transition eyes adjusted to all the darkness, he looked the aristocrat up and down. No silk pajamas and velvet slippers tonight. No slim-cut suit and cologne, either. The aristocrat was dressed for war, in full leathers, with weapons strapped to his chest, his hips, his thigh.

A shiver went through Allhan’s entire body.

“You th-think they’re coming here,” he said. “You think… the interrogations… g-gave up your address.”

When Shuli broke off and stalked into whatever room was off to the left, Allhan followed the heavy footfalls, but then stopped quick. Which is what you did when you found yourself in the middle of an arsenal of weapons pointed at the front door, pointed to another archway, pointed into the foyer.

“Hey, Al,” came a dry greeting. “What’s doing.”

Rhampage, a.k.a. Rhamp, came into focus. The other fighter was in the far corner, wedged into the juncture of two windowless walls. Next to him on the floor, some kind of vicious-looking gun the size of a desk had been propped up on a tripod.

“Has… anyone come here,” Allhan asked. “Th-the enemy, I mean.”

Dumb question. The place would be full of holes and black bloodstains that smelled like rotting grandmas.

“What do you think,” Shuli muttered with exhaustion. “And please, just go. I do not want to explain any of this hardware to the Brotherhood, but you know what is above even that on my list of shit I don’t want to deal with? Telling Vishous that you got yourself killed in my drawing room because I couldn’t make you stop apologizing for something you didn’t do. He’ll murder me just on principle alone.”

“You could also just call, Al,” Rhamp pointed out. “Phone coverage is great out here.”

“And you got nothing to apologize for.” Shuli paced from window to window, staring out the one-way filtering drapes to the snowy landscape. “So no offense, you can go the fuck home—”

“The s-slayers haven’t come, though, right?” Al glanced back and forth between the pair. “And like, if they haven’t by now, maybe they won’t. M-maybe… they didn’t ask about you.”

Because they were too busy asking about his sister.

Shuli came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re a logical guy, but stick to the computer shit, okay?”

He wanted to tell them that this house was not the target. But they wouldn’t believe him without proof, and he sure as hell didn’t want to say—

The doorbell went off, a lovely electronic harp string breaking out in the middle of the armory and aggression like a unicorn trotting through a forest fire.

“It’s goddamn Grand Central Station around here,” Shuli groused as he strode for the front entrance.

There was a pause, and then a rush of cold air rolled in and dimmed down the smell of the gunmetal and banked bullets.

“Oh, no,” Shuli muttered. “No, absolutely not.”

A female voice now. Bitty’s. “I just want to check you’re okay—”

“Nope, we’re not doing this. I appreciate the support, but—”

Allhan went to take a step forward and kicked something hard enough to feel it through the toe of his Converse As he grabbed for the pain, a rattling of metal-on-metal sounded out.

“Watch that,” Rhamp said from his corner. “Those are grenades.”

“Wh-what?” He did what he could to keep his balance because he didn’t know where to set his foot down again. “I can put them back?”

“Please fucking don’t.”

As Shuli and the Brother Rhage’s adopted daughter continued to argue out in front of the house, Rhamp disengaged from his defensible position and came across, cursing under his breath.

“This fucking night.” The fighter knelt at Allhan’s feet and started gathering things. “Everybody’s pissed off. Fucking L.W. bitched about that scene—”

“What scene? Is there another killing?”

“No. We’re still living last night, and we’re going to be for a long time.”

Out in the foyer, the door got slammed shut, and given that Bitty’s voice was still going strong, apparently she’d come inside.

“I’m so sorry,” Allhan said softly. “I know they were your friends.”

“You’re a good dude, Al.” Rhamp finished remaking the pyramid of bang-bangs and stood back up. “You truly are. And they weren’t really my boys, but they did not deserve to die like that.”

“If the slayers haven’t shown up here yet—”

“It doesn’t mean shit. There’s no way Emile and Rolhand didn’t give up whatever they were asked, and the lessers have been trying to find a way to kill the aristocracy for three decades now. Lash was raised by them so he seems to have a special hatred for the glymera.”

“Maybe that wasn’t the information the slayers were looking for.”

“Yeah, sure. Listen, Al, you’ve got a good heart and it was cool of you to come by. But if you really want to help us, you’ll get off the property.” There was a pause, and then Rhamp tacked on, “Or find the address of where the lessers took those two males to work them over—”

“I can do that.”

The fighter went stock-still. “You can?” Then Rhamp cursed. “No, you can’t. The Brotherhood isn’t letting it out, probably to make sure we don’t go there.”

“I can absolutely get it for you.”

Shuli thundered back into the parlor, and going by the sweet scent in the air, Bitty was with him. “I might as well make fucking canapés at this point—”

“Shut up, Shuli.” Rhamp stepped in tight. “How can you get the address.”

Allhan held the fighter’s eyes steady. “That’s not your problem, and I have one stipulation—”

The front door to the mansion flew open like something had dropped out of the sky and busted it wide.

The Brother Rhage marched into the house, and for once, there was no jokey hi-how’re-ya, no swagger, no cutup commentary. In fact, the wave of aggression that preceded him was enough to make the walls bow.

Oh, so that was what he’d sensed outside, Allhan realized. The Brotherhood was doing more than just electronically monitoring this property from afar. They or their soldiers were on site.

Waiting for an enemy that wasn’t coming.

Rhage walked right up to Bitty. “We’re going home.”

“I just wanted to check in with Shuli and—”

“Now.”

As father and daughter stared at each other for a heartbeat, Allhan glanced around at all the weapons and wondered when the Brother was going to focus on the arsenal. The warrior didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even appear to notice that there was anybody or anything else in the room.

In the world.

“Okay,” Bitty said roughly.

She didn’t waste a breath on goodbye. She just dematerialized away.

Rhage’s head cranked around to Allhan. “You’re leaving now, too.”

Those eyes, usually such a bright and shining blue, were darker and deeper than the pits of hell, and Allhan felt his blood run cold. In that gaze were centuries of war. A whole history of death and pain and horrible sights. Decisions made and regretted. Battles lost.

People lost.

“Yeah, okay,” Allhan whispered as he closed his eyes. “I’m g-going.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The one thing that L.W. freely admitted to sharing with his father was impatience.

As he stalked the slayer ahead of him, he hated the delay. He wanted to run up on the fucker, break the neck to incapacitate the arms and legs, and then drag it into some quiet, dim corner or alley so he could get to work. Instead, he had to make sure he was far enough away from all the humans huddling their way through the cold—without also getting too close to where the Brothers did their usual field work. Navigating the sweet spot of incognito was fucking annoying, and the longer he had to wait for a takedown while remaining on this south and east tack, the more enraged he got.

Which, granted, wasn’t a hard lift.

Another thing he and dear ol’ Dad had in common.

The slayer stopped up ahead and took out a cell phone. There was so much ambient light from all the buildings that the moon hadn’t needed to fill in any details: Short and stocky. Dark hair, so it was a new recruit. Jacket was shaggy and ill-fitting.

There were weapons under there, though. Lash clearly didn’t care about wardrobes, but he was arming his undead well these days.

L.W. stepped back into the shadows of a doorway, but he didn’t think the fucker was going to bother to look over its shoulder.

Out alone. No backup. Untrained.

Not much of a challenge. Then again, he himself was at a disadvantage with all his lingering injuries.

As he was forced to wait some more, his upper lip peeled up on its own, the cold tapping on his fangs and making them tingle. He wanted to take out his phone so he could yell at Rhamp again just to work off his frustration, but he didn’t want to give away his position….

He glanced around as the delay continued.

Fuck it. Closing his eyes, he took a slow, deep breath—

And willed himself right behind the slayer.

“Boo.”

The undead bastard wheeled around, his eyes going peeled-wide.

“I’m gonna make you hurt,” L.W. growled as he clapped his hands on both of those ears.

With a jerk, he twisted the head, and the snap of the cervical vertebra was oh, so satisfying, as was the instant deadweight. Releasing his hold, the slayer went facedown into the dirty snow like a bag of sand, and yet the piece of shit stayed alive.

Fine, animated.

L.W. planted a shitkicker on either side of the torso and rolled the thing on its back. There was fear in those peepers, instead of the usual defiance, and the mouth was working like it was trying to talk, but oops—the voice box had been reduced to pulled pork.

“Don’t tell me this is your first night out,” he said to the thing.

With what was left of the muscle control on the side of its neck, there was a little nod and a lot more lip movement.

“Well, ain’t that a bitch—”

As a tear eased out of one of those eyes, L.W. felt a fresh shot of rage. “Now you’re crying. This bargain with Lash not turn out how you thought, huh?”

He put his face right into the lesser’s. “Did you get double-crossed? Were you lied to about what you were getting into?”

The way the tears increased, he took that as a yes.

Inside his coat, his phone went off with a vibration. When it immediately stilled and started up again, that was the signal that it was either Rhamp or Shuli. But now was not the time for interruptions.

“Sold on a lie, and your soul was taken.”

More tears, so many that they mixed with the black, glossy blood that had been pumped into the body after it had been drained of everything that made it human.

“I’m so sorry.”

On that shot of sarcasm, he bared both his fangs, hissed, and bit the flesh off the cheek. Spitting the chunk out to the side, he knew a fury that transformed him in ways that should have scared him. Instead, he took the black emotion down deep, like it was the last breath before he submerged.

As his phone went off once again, he ignored it and unsheathed a dagger. The slayer’s eyes got even wider as he put the tip right under the jaw.

“We’re going to have a nice little chat, you and me.” He might have fucked its voice, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a conversation. “You’re going to blink once for yes, and twice for—”

“Hey! What are you doing!”

The frantic shout came from behind him, and L.W. twisted around. Two human men were standing at the corner of the previous block, and unlike the types he’d run into back when he’d been allowed in the field proper, these were not the drug-addled, stay-to-themselves variety. Dressed in weather-appropriate clothing, with clean hair that was cut and backpacks that suggested he was close to SUNY Caldwell’s downtown campus, they were far, far too alert.

Fucking college students. Who had nothing better to do than save the world and share it on social media.

And the one next to Mr. Bullhorn was already taking out a cell phone.

L.W. set on the pair before he could stop himself, before higher reasoning stepped in and got him to fucking chill. Halfway across the distance, it dawned on him that he still had the knife in his dagger hand, and he was prepared to use it—which should have shocked him. All of this attack should have shocked him.

But he hadn’t been right lately.

Hell, he hadn’t been right for a very long time.

The SUNY Caldwellers took one look at the freight train heading their way and rethought their commitment to what they assumed was their fellow man. Tripping over their own feet, they bolted into a retreat—

Bright light.

Realllllly fucking bright light—

L.W. was suddenly blinded, and he threw his arms up over his face as he braced for impact. Except there was no car coming at him, no flashlight in his face, nothing that he could block or get out of the way of. Literally one second he was seeing fine, and then everything was fucked, as if he’d had some kind of stroke or seizure.

Blinking to try to clear his vision, he saw only a white field of nothing.

And then it was stars.

Not the celestial kind. The shit that came when you ran into the side of a building.

Pain now. A fuck ton of pain.

Fucking wonderful.

Misdirected momentum being what it was, he’d slammed into something concrete, and it was like having a tank as a chiropractor, every bone in his entire fucking body screaming. The fact that there’d been some kind of crack in return was hardly a point of pride, especially as a wild vertigo sent him into the kind of spin he couldn’t get his feet under. As he hit the ground, he bounced on the snow and got chunks of ice in his face.

For a minute, all he could do was just check in on what else might be wrong: Breathing, yup. Heart rate, high but steady. Arms and legs, fairly good to go. But his eyes were just not functioning.

Get up. Get the fuck up—

The voice inside his head that usually rode him about what a piece of shit he was started going drill sergeant and he didn’t disagree with it. There was a messy, unresolved problem to clean up after about twenty feet behind him, and those humans were absolutely going to be dialing for help the second they realized they were no longer being chased by a madman with a dagger.

Everything was sloppy seconds as he got to his feet and started to slip and stomp back to the lesser. As sirens busted out, he hated that he was right: Those two busybody assholes had gone to the nearest Public Safety Response call box and summoned the CPD cop-bot brigade.

Still seeing nothing but a glaring white expanse, his nose guided him back to the stink. Or at least what seemed to be in its vicinity. Falling down to his knees, he patted around with his free hand—

Thank fuck he ran into a leg. Feeling up the lesser’s body, he located the center of the chest by pressing into the flat pecs until he hit the hard plate of the sternum. Setting the dagger point right there, he locked both hands on the hilt, hauled straight up, and sent the weapon down like he was starting CPR.

There was an instant blast of heat. No flash of light registered, though, because it was like he was perpetually staring into one.

Meanwhile, the damn sirens were getting louder.

Lost in his whiteout, he realized…

He might just be cooked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Back at the Wheel, Allhan sat down on his bed and let the warmth of the room chase away the cold that had seeped into him as he’d traveled back from Shuli’s house. While the heat-up worked okay on his fingers and nose, and the tips of his toes, it didn’t do anything for the numb chill that was inside his body.

Looking down at himself, his clothes registered in a way they never had.

Different jeans, but essentially the same he’d been wearing the night before. That particular pair was getting washed, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to wear them ever again. Same with the sweatshirt he’d had on as he’d held that dying male.

The fact that he was thinking about a new wardrobe, at a time like this, was the first aristocratic thing he’d done in oh, so long.

Taking out his Samsung, all he wanted to do was call Denne and see if she would, in fact, answer. But then he focused on what he’d promised Rhamp. Shit. The way to make up for the fact that he’d gotten six males killed was not to set up three more. But it was their right to ahvenge those deaths.

That was what you did when someone you loved was hurt.

He knew that firsthand.

And there was no way he could go after the enemy himself. He wasn’t trained to fight. If someone put a gun in his hand, he was liable to shoot himself.

Hell, maybe that would be a public service.

On this note, he reached up to his ear and felt around. The wound was totally healed, and it seemed fucked up to regret that. What, like the damage to the outer rim was a hickey he wanted to keep as a souvenir?

Now was not the time to think about Denne.

And he couldn’t break into the Brotherhood’s servers here in his room. He just… couldn’t.

Getting back to his feet, he left his quarters and walked down to the living area. As he headed for the exit, he glanced around at the duffle bags of gym clothes and weapons. Then focused on the pile of Crocs by the exit. It was wrong of him to be here, sleeping under their roof, fed by them, clothed by them.

Vishous and Jane cared too much about him.

And he had come to care too much about them.

With a heavy heart, he let himself out and headed to the left, passing by so many doors. As he went along, he ticked off the homes of the King and the First Family, and the rest of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Well, L.W. didn’t stay here. He lived at Shuli’s.

Where slayers were not coming. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Likely not ever.

Finally, he came up to a series of rooms that were for common use, but which were rarely visited as far as he knew: Movie theater. Arts and crafts facility. A library filled with original volumes of the Old Laws.

He picked that last one because surely nobody ever went in there. If someone needed something related to those ancient edicts, they just asked Saxton, the King’s solicitor. Or looked it up in the scanned, searchable database.

No way there was time for a manual search through a billion pages of parchment and ink.

As he entered the room, motion-activated lights came on at the ceiling and down the shelves. The scent was soothing: Antique leather and oil soap. The memories were not: Everything about the rows upon rows of gold-embossed spines reminded him of his father’s rare book room, and he hated thinking of the way he had once lived.

With all that perceived wealth and status came only lies and pain.

There was a pair of deep-red velvet armchairs in the back and he went over and sat in one. Taking out his burner phone, he gritted his teeth and felt his newest deception as a physical pain. Accessing the internet was the work of a moment, and a VPN cloaked him in secrecy. That wasn’t enough, though. He went into the dark web through a Zeus browser, and then back-ended into the BDB scene database like a ghost.

Vishous was the only one in FT Headquarters who could find an infiltration like this, but the Brother wasn’t going to be looking for anybody going where Allhan was. And if he did discover the entry, and somehow managed to trace it back? There was an easy enough explanation.

He had to see the incident report. In order to understand what had happened last night.

That was not a lie.

And as for the burner phone? He’d just have to make up an excuse.

God, he hated himself, he really did.

As the directory of scene reports propagated on his phone’s little screen, he squinted. The form was just a generic template that was supposed to be filled out by one point person per engagement with the enemy, and from time to time, he’d seen printed versions of them on Vishous’s desk.

He’d never gone into this restricted file system before, however.

No titles. Just dates, and the one at the top was last night’s.

His forefinger hesitated. And then instead of opening the thing, he started to scroll through the list.

With sweat breaking out across his brow and over his upper lip, he swiped up. And… swiped up again. And again.

And again.

There were so many files. The list literally just kept coming, to the point where he stopped tracking the months and just watched the years go by.

“Jesus… Christ,” he whispered.

When the end finally came, he saw that the date was only some three decades ago. This database, these reports, were just the most modern part of the record.

He let the burner drop into his lap, closed his eyes, and tilted his face into his hand. Hundreds… no, thousands of engagements with the enemy, of death and fighting, of war. Decades that led into centuries that bled into eras and eons.

He had known what Vishous and the others did, but those were merely facts.

This was a mere keyhole into the history of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and it was ugly and terrible, and he had no idea where they put the memories in their heads. What he had witnessed the night before had consumed parts of his mind, and the violence, the smells, the horrific details, and the sorrow-filled big picture were still there. It was always going to be there. His brain had been rewired from the moment he’d stepped out into that alley and scented the blood.

Where did they store the horror.

Allhan opened the first of the scene reports, and he was not surprised Vishous was the one who’d filed it. The number was 00001, the date was some thirty-three years ago, and the address was in the older, wealthy part of Caldwell known as Millionaire’s Row. The time was after midnight, and there were only two names listed under “Personnel on Scene.”

Fritz and Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath.

For “Enemy” there was just one. Lash.

“Injuries” was left blank. When Allhan got to the next line, he frowned and had to zoom in with his thumb and forefinger.

Death(s): Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath.

Allhan recoiled. “What the… hell.”

His eyes went over the line again and again, but nothing changed. Duh. Maybe this was a prototype? An example for education and training? No. No way Vishous would use the King as a victim example in some kind of how-to.

He’d have put Lash in the coffin.

Allhan stopped trying to argue with what had been listed and went down to the notes section. He didn’t know what to expect. He was shocked.

On the night in question, Fritz Perlmutter proceeded to the address above, upon which a Restricted Access, No Unauthorized Personnel, had been placed. The purpose for the unauthorized visit was to retrieve a young’s blanket for one of the other doggen. Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, aware of Mr. Perlmutter’s devotion to his subordinates, immediately proceeded to the address above and heroically intervened just as a pressure-release detonator was triggered by the opening of the rear door of the residence. An ordnance exploded. The King was instantly killed.

Members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, the Band of Bastards, and associated fighters, including myself, arrived on scene. Dr. Jane Whitcomb proceeded to the address as well and rendered care to Fritz, who sustained very minor injuries, but who was understandably inconsolable.

Human interference was subsequently neutralized and the structure was boarded up by members of the doggen staff.

Fighters reassembled at another location for engagement with the enemy.

Refer to report 00002 for details.

On a personal note, this will henceforth be known as a night of unimaginable tragedy and grief.

Faithfully Submitted,

Vishous, son of the Bloodletter

Allhan reread the report. And after a third time through it, he fumbled around and found his way back to the list of files. He did not understand… anything. The King was very much alive. He had seen the great male with his own eyes at the Audience House, whenever he delivered reports or documents over to Saxton. Moreover, Wrath had been alive for the last three decades, conducting audiences, ruling over his citizens. Allhan knew this because his father, like a lot of the glymera leaders, had long resented the royal power seat and talked about the need for the monarchy to be abolished.

So Chritophe could take over.

But why would Vishous make up something like that?

In a quest to understand, Allhan went into the next report, the one that was referenced. Report 00002 was twelve screens long and detailed an epic battle involving so many Brothers and fighters that he stopped tracking them. There was a mansion. A run-in with Lash, the leader of the Lessening Society. Explosions and a fire…

He couldn’t comprehend it all as he continued through what was detailed, going screen after screen about who had been involved, and who had been injured, and how many slayers had been killed.

There was no reading that twice. So he went back to the directory and opened the next report. And the next. And…

Vishous had recorded each one. His name was at the bottom for every sign-off, and the descriptions were all the more impactful for their clinical nature and objective specificity. And if the Brother hadn’t been at the scenes himself, fighting and being injured firsthand, then he was clearly interviewing everybody afterward about every single thing that had happened to them.

He was the scribe of warfare. The keeper of conflict. The recorder of lives lost and pain endured.

Allhan lowered his phone and stared across the library. As a chill went down his spine, he just sat there, not even blinking. He couldn’t imagine what that was like. Going to people you loved and asking them to relive fights that had been hard-won, and injuries that had been courageously borne, and perhaps even mistakes that were sorely regretted.

It would be impossible not to internalize everything. Even if you hadn’t been there, you were still the one writing it all down in chronicles of great courage and chaos and suffering.

Funny. The awe and grave respect he felt was the complete opposite of how it had been after he’d found out what his father had been doing with the slayer. Then again, there was nothing heroic about selling information to the enemy just to save your own fortunes and gain more status. The whole basis of his sire’s crime had struck Allhan as fucking pathetic, and disloyal to the point of recklessness.

And the irony of his own lying and manipulation made him physically sick.

Plus there were no excuses for his own actions. Even though his sister’s life depended on it, he was still betraying the very people who had taken him in when he had nothing else in the world.

Or had set it up so it looked like that was true for him.

As something tickled just beneath his consciousness, he shied away from the dawning revelation, knowing that if he looked too far into his choices, he was going to break apart and not be able to function. The reality was that he’d had the information that lesser had bargained for for quite some time now. Months, really. Ever since Vishous and Jane had invited him to Last Meal here after he’d pulled three back-to-back shifts.

But he hadn’t been able to give the slayer what the undead wanted, what had been brokered for.

What protected his sister.

Now he had a week, except what was really going to change? It felt like he was choosing between the only family he had…

And the family he wanted.

Unable to bear his own predicament, he went back to the screen and stared at the directory, idly scrolling up and down. On impulse, he went to tuck one of his legs under his seat, that position he often settled into when he didn’t intend on moving for a while. It was no longer possible, his thighs and calves far too big. All he could do was cross things at the knee, even though it felt weird.

He might as well get this new body of his into some form of comfort, though. He was going to be here for a while.

Allhan was going to read the reports Vishous had filed.

Every single one of them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Holding open Sal’s back door, Denne waved to the last of the departing staff, and then waited until the dishwasher made it to the final car in the parking lot and was safely on her way. Shutting herself inside the restaurant, the silence closed in on her, an unsettling contrast to the usual noise and rushing bodies and barrage of scents and sizzles. Instead of all kinds of peace resonating, she felt oppressed.

Walking into the kitchen, she smelled floor cleaner, bleach, and wet steel wool. An errant rag had been forgotten over by the dismantled and sanitized salad station so she headed across and picked up the damp cloth, stretching out the folds so the Sal’s logo wasn’t distorted.

Thanking Allhan once again in her head, she took the thing to the laundry room. The closet-sized space was cramped, with the industrial washer and dryer taking up all the square footage but for the folding station. She tossed the rag into an empty hamper, but thought better of it, draping the weight over the lattice sides so it didn’t mold.

Not that it would in what, six hours? Eight?

Whatever, what the hell was she doing.

Nothing. She was doing fucking nothing.

Wandering aimlessly out to the bar, she circled behind the counter to stride down Julianne’s stretch of real estate, noting that all the bottles were capped after having been measured, and the glassware was lined up fresh and sparkling, and the chilled containers, where the lemon and lime wedges were kept during service, were upside down in the squat stainless steel sink. Nothing was out of place.

The same was true with the booths in this VIP section, everything ready for tomorrow night. Both dining rooms were good to go as well, the red leather seats pushed into the white-linen-covered tables, the pressed napkins arranged on the red and white Sal’s branded chargers, the old-fashioned votive candles freshened and prepared for lighting.

As she always did before she left, she tested the front door to make sure it was locked, and when she went by the host stand, she took a look at the reservations booked for the next night. She loved the fact that everything was still on paper. Part of it was that Marco’s uncle could barely answer a cell phone, much less work an app that organized the customers. The other was that Sal’s as an enterprise was all about the way it used to be—

The click in the back of the restaurant traveled through the various rooms like a bird flushed and flying at her.

If she’d been a human, she never would have heard the quiet sound. But she wasn’t.

“Father?” she called out.

iAm was the only one who would come this late, after everybody else had left. She knew he missed the place, and guessed that he was counting down the years, the decades, until he could return. Funny, she hadn’t really thought about it before, but she envied him his interest and passion. She’d never had that in her life.

From out of nowhere, an image of Al’s face after she’d given him his first kiss took up all her mental bandwidth—

The memory disintegrated as a male she never expected to see at Sal’s emerged through the flap door. And for a split second, she didn’t know how to reconcile the civilian image before her with what she had always known of t’On. No ceremonial robes. No elaborate headdress. Her mother’s Tretary was dressed in pressed black slacks, a fresh white button-down, and a smartly tailored black suit jacket. He even had a jaunty gray and black handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket.

She had always been aware that he wasn’t ugly. Now she recognized him as… handsome. In a reserved kind of way.

“Hot date?” she drawled.

A flicker of distaste narrowed his eyes. “Of course not. With whom else would I ever…”

As t’On let that one go off into the rhetorical sunset, she flushed. “Oh. So this is for me.”

He unbuttoned the jacket. Rebuttoned it immediately thereafter, as if he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to fit or didn’t like the way the thing felt.

“I thought you might wish for me to present a more contemporary figure.”

Between one blink and the next, she thought of how great sweatshirts and jeans looked on a male.

“Perhaps you and I could go out to an eatery now, assuming we can find one that’s open.” He indicated the kitchen door he’d emerged from. “Or you could make me a repast of the Italian tradition?”

“I don’t cook.”

“Ah.” He inclined his head. “That leaves a human establishment, then.”

Denne crossed her arms over her chest and cursed those stupid stars. And the dumbass chart. And the whole tradition of her people that suggested anything could be predicted or should be determined by a celestial display that had been projected in Earth’s direction millions of years ago.

For fuck’s sake, half the twinkle-twinkles up there didn’t even exist anymore, right? Because it took that long for light to travel those interstellar distances. Yet here she was with this painfully awkward male in a suit he hated all because of the cosmos.

“t’On, you need to get real.” She shook her head. “You’d rather have scissors driven into your eyes than be anywhere near a human. Much less many of them, eating. That’s not your vibe, and it isn’t mine, either.”

His brows rose into his high, intelligent forehead. “You are correct, but I understand that a mating requires certain considerations for the other party. You enjoy your time herein so I assumed you found this environment… energizing in some fashion.”

“ ‘Enjoy’ is not a word I’d use.” She glanced around at the tables. “I don’t have much of an opinion about this place, actually. My father loves it. I love him. He can’t be here right now, so I come and make sure the trains run on time. It’s better than sitting around and doing nothing.”

t’On made a sound in the back of his throat and then idly wandered away to one of the booths. Picking up a water glass from a setting, he held it up to the light as if to inspect its cleanliness.

“So devoted a daughter you are.” He put the glass down, and clasped his hands behind the small of his back. “That is to be commended.”

“It’s just what you do.”

“Tell me something. Do you feel then the s’Hisbe is not as important as this commercial venture?” His black eyes shot over his shoulder. “Our traditions, your royal bloodline, the challenges faced nightly by the Territory, none of that is as significant to you as this place that serves food and kindles only diffidence in your heart?”

Denne narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“You do not have to. Your actions and priorities answer the question. Twenty-four hours after the sign and you’re still here. Working for the transitory, irrelevant pleasure of humans.”

“You know what, I think you need to go—”

“Do you know how I spent the day?” His long, dark hands steepled in front of his sternum as he turned back to her. “We had another visit from the humans who seek to destroy us.”

“Oh, come on.” Denne cursed under her breath. “Will you stop being so dramatic? Those paper pushers talking about taxes and religious exceptions are nothing to worry about—”

“They brought a resolution of notice passed by their Metro Council. They are prepared to exercise eminent domain over our lands if we do not sell. I took care of the two men, but that is not going to solve the issue with the larger group. They will be back.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Have you spoken with my parents?”

“To your mother, of course. Right away.”

“And?”

“That is for her to communicate to you. I am but an appointed servant, and in that capacity, I owe the one to whom I am indebted for my position ultimate discretion.”

Denne looked away. Looked back. t’On had always gotten on her nerves a little bit because he was so stiff and rule-bound, but his devotion to the s’Hisbe and her parents had never been in question. He was resolutely loyal, unfailingly protective, and forever giving his best.

Maybe it wasn’t so much that she was irritated by him, but that, as when it came to her father and this place, she envied the purpose he had.

“You are a good male,” she said with resignation.

Instantly, t’On’s posture eased, and she had the sense he was, for once, being honest instead of honorable: “I know you have no love for me, but there is mutual regard and the stars are never wrong. What they provide is the truth we can choose to embrace before it is forced down our throats by destiny. It does not matter that your heart is not with me in a romantic sense. The s’Hisbe is all that matters. You and you alone have been chosen to define our future. Few are anointed with such sway, and what you do next will reveal your character.”

“There is no love between us,” she echoed. Unnecessarily.

“Not true. You love the s’Hisbe and so do I. That is where the love is.” He motioned around the restaurant. “Do you really wish to choose a present you have no ties to over the legacy of your blood- line?”

Denne rubbed her face and wondered why she had to be the one in this position.

After a moment, t’On bowed with the restrained dignity he had always shown. “I know I have made my decision and I shall be able to sleep during the day soundly for however long I live. Will you be able to do the same, I wonder.”

As he left, she wanted to throw something. Not at him. He was stuck in this mess just like she was.

God, she wished she’d never seen those two stars.

They were ruining her life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

L.W. should never have fucking left tonight.”

As Shuli repeated that mantra, he paced out of his drawing room, crossed the foyer to the dining room, and looked out the bulletproof windows to the lawn. With everything dark in the house and the filtering drapes in place, he was able to easily visualize the lane out in front and all the absolutely-nothing going on. The same was true for the back gardens, and both side perimeters of his property.

All afternoon and into the evening, he’d been roaming the floor plan, staring out the thick glass, searching for trouble and finding nada. Every second had seemed like the precursor for an attack, but as the no-problems had stretched over the course of hours and hours, a conclusion was starting to form in his head.

Was it possible that Emile and Rolhand had held up under interrogation? That even after they had been tortured for God knew how long… they hadn’t revealed anything about where the glymera lived? He’d imagined they would have kept quiet about their own families’ houses, trading intel on everybody else’s to keep their bloodlines safe.

But with none of the enemy showing up here? Or anywhere else?

It was possible those males had been stronger than anybody knew. Still, he had to stay sharp.

Shuli continued to stare over the snowdrifts, then measured the moon in the clear, starry sky. He wanted lessers to show up here. Wanted to welcome them into the elegant, white interior of the house he’d bought with his dead parents’ money.

And then he wanted to turn the whole goddamn inside into his own version of a Jackson Pollock.

“I’ve called that fucker five times,” Rhamp said from the parlor. “Texted him in code.”

Yeah, the whole code thing, Shuli thought wryly as he went to the next window. They’d devised a way to communicate so the Brotherhood didn’t know what they were saying—not that someone like Allhan couldn’t figure it out if pressed, but it was better than being obvious.

After all, when you were deliberately flaunting an order not to go into the field, covering your tracks only made sense.

“Call that dipshit again,” Shuli said as he paused by the sideboard and leaned in to look at himself in a polished serving platter. “Motherfucker wants lessers. They could well come here tonight to fight. But noooooo, he’s got to go downtown and be—”

The front door opened, and the blast of cold air carried all kinds of blood scent on it.

“Jesus Christ,” Shuli muttered as he raced back to the foyer.

Skidding to a halt, he did a stem-to-stern on the huge male who filled the jambs. The heir to the throne was looking like someone had used him for target practice. With a ball-peen hammer. That arrogant face had a bash on one side that was already swelling up, and blood was dripping off the guy’s ear. The long, straight black hair was tangled, and there were fresh scrapes and street salt on the front of the black jacket and the leathers.

“You should have come in through the escape tunnel,” Shuli groused as he yanked L.W. inside and closed the door. “The Brotherhood has us staked out and they’ve just seen you like this.”

“Like I give a fuck.”

As the fighter went into the parlor to head for his bedroom wing, the limping was not a surprise. The fact that there wasn’t more conversation was also not a shocker—

Wha-BAM!

As L.W. tripped on one of the machine guns that had been tripod’d by the white silk sofa, he got tangled in his own shitkickers, and threw his hands out to stop himself from falling. Rhamp and Shuli both jumped forward to help at the same time, but… everything went to chaos.

Then again, try playing hot potato with something that had the impulse control of an alligator and weighed three hundred pounds.

The harder they tried to catch L.W., the more he fought them off and pinwheeled around, slamming into furniture and tripping over other munitions—

“Not the Mondrian!” Shuli shouted as he went offensive lineman.

He might as well have put himself in front of a train. The brutal contact knocked all the breath out of him, but at least he saved the painting by playing eight ball in the corner pocket. And as the impact of their bodies sent L.W. careening away at an all-wrong angle, Shuli told himself that the other male was going to catch his balance before he—

The fighter ass-over-teakettled like the sofa he ran into was something he never saw coming, and as he back-flatted on the glass coffee table, there was a loud crash and a brilliant shimmer as the top shattered and the legs bowed out.

In the aftermath, they were all breathing hard, and the darkness didn’t help with orientation, so Shuli went over and turned on the lights. After two blinks, he was good to go and Rhamp was clearly the same. L.W., however, sat up slowly—

And put both arms out in front of him to pat the air.

As Shuli watched the male turn his head from side to side, those pale green eyes didn’t focus, the pupils so tiny that they barely registered.

Rhamp went over silently and knelt down. When he waved a hand right in front of L.W.’s face and the male didn’t flinch, you could watch the guy do the math.

“Can you see me?” Rhamp asked in a low voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

L.W. pushed himself up to his feet, stepped on one of the grenades, and rolled his ankle even with the shitkicker. This time, he caught himself, though. Barely.

And then he just stood there. Bleeding, breathing, being angry.

Lost, even though he clearly refused to admit it.

Shuli went across and took the guy’s arm. When L.W. tried to pull free, he shut that shit down quick. “I’m just going to get you to the bedroom.”

“I don’t need—”

“So you want to trip over all the guns in this room? Would that be fun for you? I’m thinking no. So fuck you.”

Shuli got moving, and even though he expected more arguments, L.W. just followed, down the hall off the parlor, a rabid dog unexpectedly coming to a heel. When they got to the end, Shuli opened the door and willed on the dimmer for the ceiling light. The bedroom was as neat and tidy as a military closet, L.W.’s gear and sets of leathers laid out over the furniture, an all-war decor.

Piloting over the carpet, Shuli dumped the guy on the messy bed, and as he did, he had the thought that there had been a time when he wouldn’t have wanted to stain the Frette sheets and duvet.

Waaaaaaaaaay past worrying about linens at this point.

Putting his hands on his hips, he stared at the male as Rhamp came up behind him. With another quick shot of will, he cranked the intensity of the light fixture up until he had to strain not to blink while his eyes adjusted.

L.W. just stared right at the ceiling, his pupils unchanging, his lids wide open.

“What happened out there,” Rhamp asked in a quiet voice. Like he was running through all kinds of scenarios, none of which were good.

“It’s fine,” L.W. replied hoarsely.

Rhamp shook his head. “Unless you start talking right now, I’m out. If you expect me to keep putting my life on the line for you, you’re going to be honest with me right now.”

“I didn’t ask you to do shit.”

As Rhamp cursed and turned to leave, Shuli slapped a hold on the guy’s arm and jerked him back into place.

“He’s right.” Shuli leaned down and still those pale green eyes didn’t shift to him. At all. “Get talking. What happened.”

Long silence. Then: “A flash went off in my face, and my eyesight hasn’t adjusted yet. Okay, Mom?”

Straightening, Shuli catalogued the black blood on the leather jacket and the red blood on L.W.’s puss. “Enough is enough. You need to get this shit checked out.”

“It was just the flash from the stabbing—”

“You’re going to go to Doc Jane or I’m telling your parents.” Shuli shrugged. “That’s where we’re at—”

“Fuck you—”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve redecorated my entire house in bullets and bombs. I’m waiting for the enemy to show up here, and the property is surrounded by Brothers and Bastards. You don’t want to admit a weakness, fine. That’s your choice. But you’re making yourself a liability to me and Rhamp, and I wouldn’t think your ego’d masturbate over that reality. Do you really want to be that much of a lameass.”

Rhamp glanced back and forth between them. Then he shook his head like he wanted to punch them both. “This isn’t the first time, is it. That you haven’t been able to see.”

Shuli just kept staring down at the bed. “I’ll let him answer that.”

There was a stretch of silence. After which Rhamp dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “Great. So that’s a no.”

“Don’t you want to be able to fight,” Shuli said in a low voice. “If there’s some help Doc Jane could offer you, don’t you want it? So you can do what you were born to do.”

It was the best argument anyone could offer the fucker, the only carrot they had—and God knew sticks were a no-go. The hardheaded cocksucker was too mean and numb to be influenced by threats.

L.W. exhaled as if he were staring down a long drop and contemplating a jump. “I’m running out of time.”

“You don’t know that, until you get a medical opinion.” Shuli rubbed his aching fucking temples. “Doc Jane has to keep everything confidential, so she won’t say anything—”

“You believe that?”

“Yeah, I do. You have no idea what I’ve talked to her about.”

Abruptly, Rhamp started pacing around, his brows down so low, they could have qualified as a mustache. “When were you two assholes going to tell me about this.”

L.W. and Shuli answered at the same time: “Never.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

When Denne arrived at the cabin by the s’Hisbe, she looked at the snowed-in stump of a structure and had an absurd impulse to burn it down. t’On’s words were stalking her and maybe they’d be frightened off by the flames.

Probably not.

At the door, she stomped her boots on the welcome mat and opened the way in. She half expected her parents to be waiting for her, an ambush riding a tide of love and worry that swamped everything. Or maybe it would be t’On again, out of the suit he’d put on for her, even though the feel of it made his skin crawl.

“Fuck me.”

Heading over to the rack of robes, she shucked her parka, and then hesitated. With a heavy sense of guilt, she ran her hand down the falls of fine fabric and stopped on a random one. It was a burnished gold, and with a sudden shot of shame, she couldn’t remember what the color was supposed to mean. Next to it was a burgundy red, and on the other side, a navy blue. Finally, there was the deep purple she’d tossed on last night.

Closing her eyes, she started all over again with the eenie meenie miney—

“Moe.”

Navy blue. She didn’t know what that signified, either. Overriding a choking sensation, she drew the draping off the hanger, but instead of pulling it on, she ran her hands over the heavy woolen folds and measured the even, perfect stitching on the seams. There were three seamstresses who made the royal robes—or there had been three. The eldest of the trio had died last year. They’d been trained in the tradition by the previous generation of masters, who in turn had been trained by the masters before them.

She hadn’t seen anybody else coming in as an apprentice, had she?

She didn’t know. But if no one did, the artistry would be lost.

Slipping the weight onto her shoulders, she was struck by the instant warmth and the reassuring way the folds fell around her body. The fastenings up the front were a series of pearl buttons that were hidden in a pleat that went from the short collar all the way to the hem, and as her fingers worked them, she imagined the old, infirmed hands that had made such precise knots.

When she was finished doing up the tie at the neck, she wondered why she’d never appreciated the details before. And the fit? The robe had been specially tailored to her so that nothing around the neck or shoulders pulled, and the tips of her boots just barely showed at the bottom.

She remembered the fitting. It had been…

“Ten years ago?” she said aloud. “Really? No, it can’t be.”

Except she was sure because she’d gone the night after she’d made it through her transition. She’d been totally frustrated during the incessant fussing over her, so impatient to get it all over with.

She had done her best not to let her true feelings show, but she’d been exhausted, nauseous, sore all over. But more than that, she hadn’t cared about any of it, not the tailoring, not the rainbow of colors, certainly not her role in the royal protocol.

Not even the fact that she’d made it to the other side of the change.

Now, though, as she lifted the hand-spun wool and marveled at what a beautiful blue it was, she wondered whether she’d been as good at hiding her derision as she’d thought.

Turning back to the rack, she realized that all the robes came from that session. Ten years, and she was still using them. And not just because they were of high-quality materials, and made by careful, trained hands.

It was because the only time those robes were off the hangers was when she yanked them on here, entered the palace, and raced for her own quarters so she could take them off fast.

Maybe t’On had a point, although not in the way he’d meant. She had been hurrying through a lot of things, staying on the surface, too numb and disinterested to connect to anything and anybody. Like, when was the last time she’d shared a meal with her parents? Sure, there were pickup snacks at dawn when she checked in with them or a smoothie on her way out at night before she left for the restaurant… but what about the last time they’d lingered over a table, shared stories from their lives or the thoughts on their minds, laughed at some memory they all had in common from when she’d been a young?

Had there even been any funny stories from her early years?

She didn’t know. She certainly didn’t remember—

“What the fuck is going on with me,” she muttered as she went to the exit.

It was like the transition was happening all over again, just on the inside. With her mind, her heart… her soul.

Something had opened up a door she’d just as soon had remained closed. In fact, the damn portal had been bricked over so completely, she hadn’t even known it was there.

Except the trigger wasn’t t’On’s accusations. Or even the chart that predicted those two stars and everything that supposedly came after their appearance.

No… it was Allhan, in the clearing down by the river. That first kiss, and the one that came after. It was what he had done for a stranger, and the way he had stared at her. How she had felt when she had looked at him, stepped into his body, tangled her cold, hungry fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

Those stars didn’t mean anything to her. That male did, though.

Unfortunately, t’On was right about one thing.

Her future had to be with the s’Hisbe.

Stepping back out into the snow, she looked to the left. On all other nights, she just dematerialized past the Territory’s great wall, but now she hiked up the robe and trudged through the moonlit winter’s forest to the boundary. The going was hard, the drifts so high in places that the snow came up over her knees. But she managed to cross the distance, and as she finally halted to catch her breath, she tilted her head back and felt a stirring of awe.

The s’Hisbe had staked out a claim to its land centuries ago, and marked the vast acreage with a towering stone edifice erected by hands that were long, long since dead and gone. Some twenty feet high and a full arm’s length wide, its mortar had been shored up over time, different tints of gray showing a patchwork of incremental improvements against the nearly black, flat-faced rocks. Up top, there were coils of barbed wire, not that you could see them from the ground, and there was only one gate for entry on foot or in a car on the far side from where she was.

That entrance was manned by human guards who had been hired through quasi-human channels opened and monitored by court representatives. Did it still look imposing? she wondered. The last time she’d been over there had been almost twenty years ago, when it had been installed. From what she’d been told, her father had been the one to suggest that the Territory needed a proper gate because their secrecy and inaccessibility were attracting attention on the internet. Evidently, he had seen what happened when curious humans became determined to get to the bottom of things.

The dreaded Netflix documentary, he called it.

Closing her eyes, she dematerialized inside. And as she re-formed in the snowpack, she had to make sure she was not—

“Wait, where are the apple trees?” She frowned and looked around. “What the fuck?”

There should have been a ring of hundreds of McIntosh, Braeburn, and Fuji apple trees, and she immediately shifted position to a quarter mile farther along the wall, just in case she was mistaken about where she was.

She wasn’t.

The orchard was gone. All of the craggy trunks with their contorted branches had disappeared.

Someone had cut them down. When?

Casting herself deeper into the Territory, she re-formed in the midst of the clusters of domed, round houses that marked the outer rim of residences. She’d always thought these single-storied homes were like mushroom caps on the earth, and she had a sudden worry that, like the apple trees, the people who had lived in them were gone.

There were no lights glowing, no smoke wisping out of the venting at the apex of the smooth roofs. Had the Shadows out here relocated somewhere else within the Territory? Shouldn’t she have known if they had? Maybe that was what the new buildings that had been erected a couple of years ago were about.

Shouldn’t she know that?

As she continued along on foot, she reassured herself that she had walked the interior halls of the palace, and run into crowds of Shadows. So there hadn’t been some radical population decline. How could there have been. Her mother was a benevolent ruler who had protected and fed and defended the s’Hisbe through countless eras of human intervention and complication. And there had been so much of it: Questions about land ownership. Taxes owed. Rights to privacy challenged.

And t’On was helping her deal with the new issue raised about the data centers—

Abruptly, Denne had to stop again, her breathing so hard that she wheezed in the cold. When she felt like she could finally go on, she lifted the hem of the robing and resumed the slow plodding toward the fancier abodes of the courtiers. These three-story structures did glow with interior lights, their white stucco walls and ornate corners and cornices making her think of birthday cakes. No humble hunkering down for the wealthier members of court—and she wondered whether they still had the walkways that connected everything.

The ones that were bracketed by beds of flowers, in the spring and summer.

She should know that, too. And she’d used to, thanks to those strolls that her father and her had taken at sunset for years.

She couldn’t remember deciding they wouldn’t do that anymore. It must have happened when she started going to the restaurant. Right?

The palace came into looming presence, but it wasn’t a Disney castle with gargoyles on the eaves and sets of steps that rolled up to unfurled royal standards and guards at attention. Nope. The black and silver glass structure looked like a vast, upscale office or classroom building, all clean lines and dark mirrored panes reflecting the snowy landscape and the countless shades of blue created by the moonbeams.

It was a most un-royal facility, and the two floors underground where she and her parents stayed were equally modest and modern.

According to whispered lore she’d overheard when she was young, the palace was nothing like what her grandmother had lived in. But when her mother had taken over, everything associated with the previous Queen had been destroyed, burned to the ground, or torn down.

She’d never asked why.

On that note, did she like living here? she wondered as she made her way around to the front. For sure, it wasn’t bad digs. But she should have a better connection to her home, shouldn’t she? Shouldn’t she care?

“Of course I do,” she huffed between panting inhales. “This is where I am from.”

All of this was where Shadows lived and had always lived. Where their traditions were upheld, where the constellations were observed and interpreted, just as they had been for generations. Where humans did not tread and vampires were not encouraged to attend, as the saying went.

And no lessers had ever ventured, thanks to the Black Dagger Brotherhood keeping the war with the Lessening Society in downtown Caldwell.

As she arrived at the palace’s utterly nondescript entrance, the pair of double doors with push bars opened wide.

She expected it to be a guard, one of s’Ex’s males.

It wasn’t. And abruptly, Denne felt an absurd urge to cry.

“Hi,” she said to her father.

As with the Territory she had just trudged through, she felt as though she hadn’t seen iAm for years, and she searched his face. She had always taken after his side of things, their features eerily similar, especially in the arch of the brows and their deeply set eyes. But she was clearly her mother’s daughter, too. She got her long, curling hair from Catra, and her voice was so much like the Queen’s. She’d also been told that they shared the same rare smile.

The Queen was often serious.

Staring at her father now, in his out-of-Territory clothes of slacks and a black cashmere sweater, she felt like she was the impostor, even though she was the one in the robe: He was devoted to her mother, who was devoted to the s’Hisbe. So that meant his life had been, and would be, centered on service to all Shadows.

Didn’t he have ambitions of his own, though? Something outside of here, something for himself? He could have opened another restaurant. A whole chain of restaurants.

Something that was his.

iAm lifted a hand, like he felt a similar separation. “Hi.”

Behind him, the figure of her mother appeared, the Queen’s golden robing spilling to the floor, her long, beautiful hair braided around her face with the ends left to fall in waves.

Just like Denne’s.

Both of her parents were so grim, it was as if someone had died.

So this is really happening, Denne thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Vishous had filed every incident report. All of them.

In spite of Allhan’s resolve to read each one, he only got through a dozen or so before he couldn’t bear to see anymore. It was all just too gruesome, the body counts of civilians, the injuries that the Brothers and fighters sustained, the grim reality of the dates, compounding and amplifying until the nightmare of war felt like something that was settling on his chest. It was a relentless, week-after-week onslaught, and he couldn’t help thinking how far back the conflict went—or measuring how many more entries there were to come in the future.

He settled for checking the “Filed by:” line.

Vishous’s name was there every time. And when he finally reached the report covering the events of last night, Allhan couldn’t help thinking that the words had been dutifully typed out even though the Brother had been in that highway accident and ended up with injuries.

After making a note of where the two males had been interrogated, Allhan closed down the browser and rubbed the back of his aching neck. He knew vaguely where the address was downtown. It was in the grid of avenues, in the true field of combat where most of the buildings and walk-ups were nothing but shells scavenged for anything of value, where lessers and the Brotherhood had been battling for longer than he cared to calculate.

Over and over again, it was the worst kind of Groundhog Day. How did they continue to fight? Especially because after all this time, they had to know that it was just going to start again at the next nightfall? The Lessening Society was a bottomless pit of recruiting, Lash sending out an ever-replenishing army of undead, a terrible tide that only ever flowed, never, ever ebbed.

For centuries here in Caldwell.

For centuries before the Brothers came here to the New World.

Letting his head fall back, he stared at the HVAC vent over his head. It was pumping out gentle, warm air, and the armchair under him was comfortable, and he wasn’t bleeding and in pain. He wasn’t scared for his life—

Well, at least not at this instant.

So much death. And if he passed on the address to Rhamp like he’d promised, wouldn’t he just be setting up those three males?

Where was the line between ahvenging the dead and getting somebody else killed?

“No,” he said hoarsely. “This has to stop…”

Taking out his Samsung, the text he sent to Rhamp was short: Soz. Can’t find address. Thx.

Then he silenced notifications because he didn’t want to hear it. He should never have promised a damn thing.

Getting up from the chair was a production. Then again, ever since the change, he’d noticed that if he sat too long in any one position, his new body stiffened up. Fortunately, a deep stretch wiped clean a lot of the aching, and then he was heading out of the library with no limping.

Just before he stepped into the hall, he paused and looked back at all the old books.

And thought of the generations of warriors who had lived and fought before this current incarnation of the Brotherhood.

The hyperventilation came on hard and strong, strangling his throat, clogging his lungs. Directionless and disorientated, he started walking fast even though he couldn’t breathe, the elemental panic that set up shop in his brain screaming that he had to run. Run fast. Before the boogeyman got him.

He even looked behind himself.

There was nothing predatory in his wake, nobody with a knife raised coming for him.

Oh, but his stalker was right there, tight on his heels, anyway.

The lies he had told, the manipulations… the faulty plan that in his arrogance he’d constructed with only partial information, his ego and stupid, youthful ignorance filling in the rest of the details.

The fact that he’d decided from the get-go to give the Brotherhood a heads-up before he had his last meeting with the slayer had been the only way he could even begin to execute his exit strategy. And he’d always told himself that as long as they knew they’d been compromised, they could get everybody out, and lie in wait for the enemy on a battlefield they controlled. Vishous, in all his brilliance, had fortified this facility in ways that were close to incalculable and very definitely infallible. Did it suck they’d have to move? Yeah, sure, but they had infinite resources, and it was arguably a good idea not to be too entrenched for too long at any one property.

He’d even managed to convince himself, in his dark and undecided moments, that he was doing the Brotherhood a favor. He wasn’t betraying them. He was delivering the enemy to them, and for a noble reason.

To protect his sister.

But as Allhan arrived at the door to the residence he’d been welcomed into, he thought about the differences between him and his hosts. On his side, things were complicated and duplicitous and dangerous. On their side, their charity was simple and profound and clear.

They had seen that he was all alone and had taken him in.

He had repaid their kindness by spying on them.

In the disparity between the two sides of the sad equation, he was revealed as a monster. A monster who had fooled himself into believing that he was just like everybody else, merely in a tight spot that was not of his own making.

Except he had killed his own father, for godsakes.

As he turned the door handle and pushed, he needed time to think, time to plan a way to get out of all this—

Vishous was sitting over on the sofa, an ashtray balanced on his black-leather-clad thigh, a stream of smoke exhaling in front of his face so that he was obscured briefly. Doc Jane was in the armchair next to him, her legs tucked under her seat as Allhan used to be able to do, her blue scrubs unmarked by blood, a pair of banana-yellow Crocs kicked off on the floor in front of her. Both of them had their eyes down, and in unison, they looked up at him.

Doc Jane had a professionally pleasant expression on her face.

Vishous looked like he’d eaten something that hadn’t agreed with him. Which was the Brother’s way of trying to smile.

In all the time Allhan had spent with them, he had never, ever known them to use the living room as anything other than a dumping ground for duffle bags and footwear.

Oh, God, they know everything, Allhan thought.

This is really happening.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The domed Constellation Room was a place Denne rarely went. It had always made her feel uncomfortable, like she was an imposter in a sacred temple, and as she entered in front of her parents, her eyes went to the white circle in the center. She had never sat in that special designation, even though she was allowed to as the heir to the throne, and for the first time, she walked over to it, stopping just outside of the demarcation.

“Dennesha,” her father said.

She pinned a smile on her face and turned around. “Uh-oh, my government name. What’s wrong?”

Even though she assumed this was about t’On and birth charts and shit she didn’t want to think about, maybe she’d luck out and they were just going to confront her about the human she’d murdered.

You know, something lighter and less troublesome to deal with.

Although knowing her luck, they’d cover the dead guy first and then hit her with her destiny as a chaser.

Her mother, the Queen, moved across the floor like she was floating, no discernible footsteps happening, the shimmering golden robe like sunlight on water at the height of the summer. And for a moment, Denne went back to her pretrans years, when she would sneak away from her tutor and swim in the ponds inside the Territory.

Such freedom in the safe rebellion she’d exercised back then, always returning to the palace before anyone noticed, thrilled and damp with her little secret.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Catra said as she looked at her mate.

When iAm just thinned his lips and nodded, her mother took a deep breath like she was about to launch a monologue that’d make War and Peace look like a pamphlet.

“t’On came to see me tonight at the restaurant,” Denne interjected before they got on a roll. “In a suit, which was a surprise. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him out of ceremonial robing so it was good to find out he actually has legs. I was starting to worry he’d never have that soccer-player-second-act males always seem to go for.”

In the dim light, her father’s black eyes gleamed. “What did he tell you?”

“Just that the shooting stars from last night meant something about him and me, and the Territory. I was closing up so I didn’t pay a lot of attention.”

Ratting the guy out for showing her the chart didn’t seem right, somehow. But she couldn’t bear to play pretend while her parents dragged out the truth she already knew.

“There was a prophecy,” Catra said softly, “that was revealed on the night of your transition. We should have presented the chart to you back then.”

“But we didn’t want you to be pressured.” iAm cursed under his breath, that stare softening with apology. “We both thought it was important for you to live your own life. Find your own way.”

Except she hadn’t been doing that, had she. She’d just been clocking in and out, going through the motions. Not that it was their fault.

“We’d like to go over the chart with you now,” her mother said. “So that you can read it yourself. And then we should talk about what you think.”

Denne nodded, even though she didn’t want to see the damn thing. Somehow that would make all this real.

She followed this time, her parents leading the way to the far side of the dome. Halfway across, they reached for each other’s hands at the same moment, and the link between them registered in the center of her own chest. She could not imagine life without them, and didn’t remember the last time she’d bothered to tell them that.

Or proved it, in some way.

The sacred chart room was a restricted library that only the Queen and the Tretary had access to. Everybody else could enter only at their invitation, and she supposed she could have asked at any time to see what was inside, and her mother would have let her.

She just hadn’t wanted to know.

The Queen opened the black glass door, and soft lighting glowed down from the ceiling, a false sun dawning in a gentle way in the black marble room.

Denne hesitated before she stepped inside, feeling like once she was over the threshold there was no going back. But as her parents looked at her, she was compelled forward, numb feet carrying her numb body into…

Well, it was like an upscale mail room.

From floor-to-ceiling, every inch of the walls was stacked with slotted compartments, and there was no counting them. A thousand? More. And as her eyes skipped around until she was dizzy, she realized in a sickening rush why she’d never come in here or stepped inside that white circle out there.

Why she’d been floating through life.

She’d been born to replace her mother.

And that was only going to happen when the reigning Queen was dead.

In some fucked-up part of her brain, she felt like as long as she didn’t embrace the training or the role of heir to the throne or any connection to the s’Hisbe, she could keep her mother alive—and that wasn’t just for Catra. It was for her father, too.

“I have it over here,” her mother said.

In the back corner, there was a black marble table that had an inset square of glass in the center. Two rolling pins were set in mounts on either side, and a stretch of parchment extended under the viewing pane, spotlit by pinprick lights in the black ceiling.

Clearly the tiny bulbs were intended to resemble the stars.

“This is the chart that was done the night of your transition,” Catra said roughly, her dark hand motioning around the pattern of dots, the cursive notations beneath them, and the golden embellishments on the edges. “As you can see, the orientation of the constellations is clear, and here is where the two falling stars met last night at the time listed.”

“So is that supposed to represent t’On and me?” Denne asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” her mother explained. “This is your quadrant, the House of Ruling, and his is over here, in the House of Service. The falling stars begin in the right places, and converge over the Territory’s rising moon, that of its future. Together, you will secure the s’Hisbe for the next generations to come.”

Even though t’On had snuck the chart out to show her a couple of years ago, she felt like she had never seen the thing before. Then again, her capacity for ignoring what was in front of her had been a carefully honed skill.

Forcing her eyes to focus, the grid that had been overlaid across the constellations finally registered and so did all the titles and notes in various precious-metal inks that had been so painstakingly inscribed by t’On. Without her mother’s direction, she wouldn’t have known what anything was. Then again, she couldn’t read the script because she’d fucked off so many of those tutorials on the s’Hisbe’s traditional language.

“What about you two?” She leaned down for a closer look, not that it did anything to improve her comprehension. “The Queen and Consort should be in that future square, too.”

“This chart is really about you and t’On,” her father said.

“But as my parents and the current leaders, you should be somewhere here.” When her parents didn’t respond, she straightened. “Where are you.”

“We’re not in the chart,” Catra said. “But like your father—”

“No, there’s a mistake. You’re both young, and I know you want to stay on the throne. Look at all you’ve accomplished, and there’s more work to be done.” She thought about what t’On had told her of the most recent visit from the humans. “I know no one is overthrowing your leadership, and you’re healthy—and if the Territory continues and I’m wearing the crown, I’m certainly not going to stand for either of you being mistreated. So… what’s up.”

iAm’s eyes went to the parchment, and the remote expression that took over his face was oddly terrifying. “We think it just means your mother is not on the throne.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“This isn’t about us,” he repeated. “This is about you, and your destiny—and your choice.”

“This is a blueprint.” Her mother touched the glass that protected the parchment and its ink and precious-metal details. “I like to think of the charts as the snapshot of the landscape that’s in front of you. What this is telling us is that you have an opportunity to play a significant role in preserving the future of the s’Hisbe if you and t’On choose to be mated.”

From out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning in her head, the kiss she’d shared with Allhan slammed into her consciousness again.

“And if I don’t?”

Her parents locked eyes with each other. Then her father answered, “Then this chart will have a different outcome in this sector, here.”

He circled over the grid that apparently was tied to the s’Hisbe.

That was when she saw there was a shadow underneath the golden writing, like something had been erased or deliberately obscured.

“What’s this?” she asked. “These smudges here.”

There was a long pause. “That is the alternate future, if you do not choose the path shown.”

“And what does it say?” She looked back and forth between them. “What happens if I don’t mate t’On?”

iAm released his breath with a curse.

Her mother was the one who answered. “It says that unless you do, everyone in the s’Hisbe…”

In the silence that followed, she found herself praying that there was another explanation, another outcome. But when the Queen couldn’t continue, everything became horribly, terribly clear, in a way it hadn’t when only she and t’On had been talking.

“Dies,” Denne finished with horror. “That’s what it means, right?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Back at the Wheel, Allhan stepped over the threshold of Vishous and Jane’s residence and shut the door. Then he just stood there, his hands loosely linked, his eyes moving around until they settled on a duffle bag full of guns and ammo. The jumble of grips and muzzles and boxes of bullets was such a commentary on how the Brotherhood handled conflict.

Did one of those lead slugs have his name on it?

“Allhan.” Doc Jane’s voice was smooth, but in a grim way. “V and I want to check in with you about how you’re doing.”

Not at all well, thank you for asking. But hey, at least they weren’t making him back up against the wall and stand on some plastic tarping.

“I-I’m okay.” As they seemed to be waiting for more, he put his hands in his pockets and felt his two phones. Not the kind of reminder he needed. “Is there something y-you wanted—”

“We know what you did.”

As Vishous cut in with the conversational equivalent of a haymaker, Allhan jerked back and felt all of the blood drain out of his head. Holy… shit. So this was a death sentence falling on him—and through the panicked chaos in his mind, there were only two things that survived in the cognitive tornado.

Carmen.

And the beautiful Shadow he had met by accident—

Doc Jane put her palms forward and shot a glare at her mate. “Allhan, you’re not in trouble.”

… Say what? He must have heard that wrong. “I-I’m not?”

As Doc Jane started shaking her head, Vishous spoke up again. “You had to know I’d catch you. You didn’t even try to hide it—”

“Allhan, we can work through anything together. The three of us. You can trust us—”

“All you had to do was ask me—”

The two of them were speaking over each other, the syllables weaving in and out, the male and female voices merging into a single communication that ended with:

“I’m not mad at you.” Vishous’s diamond eyes were as direct as ice picks. “You’re just trying to figure out how to get past what you had to do. What you saw. What lingers.”

Between one blink and the next, he pictured blood on the ivory keys of his sire’s grand piano, blood on the flagstone floor of that conservatory, blood on his face and suit and shirt that his sister had noticed before he did.

Tears speared into his eyes, riding a rush of emotion. He’d had to keep what had happened back with his father to himself for so many obvious reasons, and the necessity of secrecy was a prison he’d always assumed he was going to be in for the rest of his life.

“It’s all right,” Vishous said in a low voice. “We gotchu.”

Was it possible there was a key to let him out?

“But I don’t think looking at all those scene reports is your best call. It’s going to trap you in a loop that’ll start like you’re just doing it to understand shit, but in the end becomes a whirlpool that sucks you down.”

Allhan rubbed his face and tried to recalibrate what they were talking about. So much death to choose from, wasn’t there.

“I would have shown you anything you wanted to see.” Vishous took a draw on his hand-rolled. “But context is critical. I’d rather have been there with you as you read everything.”

Doc Jane nodded. “And we’re just bringing this up because we’re worried about you. Not because you did anything wrong.”

As they both seemed to want him to say something, he forced his head to nod. Then tacked on, “Th-thank you.”

What else could he say? He was crushed by the parallel realities they were all living in, to the point where he had to rub the center of his chest, the ache there so acute, he couldn’t draw in a breath. He even glanced down to check that he didn’t have a black dagger sticking out of his sternum.

Not yet, he thought. That was coming later.

“Do you want to talk about what you read in the incident reports?” Doc Jane prompted.

Allhan took in a deep breath. And then the words came out in a torrent, the pressure created by so many things he couldn’t talk about transferring to what he could.

And he didn’t stutter.

“I just never had any idea about what it really is like for you.” He looked back and forth between them. “Both of you. What your nights are like, what the days must feel like. What has to haunt you. That alley and passageway by Bathe are permanently in my head. It’s as if they’ve changed something physical inside me. And when I was reading the reports, I was able to understand what I couldn’t before. I can see things now. In a way I couldn’t have otherwise.”

The stillness that came over the pair of them was remarkable, and Allhan realized that they were both always in movement. Even if they were sitting down, their minds were so powerful, so engaged with what they did for the Brotherhood, for the species, that there was a perpetual distraction, always simmering below their surface.

“I don’t want anybody to go through what I did with those males,” Allhan continued. “But I wish other people could understand, as I do now, how it is to be you. Out in the field, facing the enemy, getting hurt, seeing what happens out there. And then in the clinic, treating the aftermath.”

His body started pacing, not because he told it to, but because the emotion swelling in him was too much to contain. Putting his hands on his head, he pushed into his skull, some part of him feeling like an explosion was imminent.

“People need to know what you do. How much—” His voice cracked. “How much they owe you. And the Brotherhood.”

Tears tangled in his lashes, and he slashed them away. “I just hadn’t thought about it. Until now. I didn’t know.”

All at once, he stopped. He was getting too close to the edge of no return if he kept talking, and as he felt both of them staring at him in shock, he had a thought that he wasn’t going to be able to bear seeing hatred and anger contort those familiar faces.

Slowly lowering his eyes, he spoke to the carpeting under his feet. “Smart people can be stupid. They can be so stupid. I am so stupid—”

“No, you’re not.”

He wasn’t sure which one of them said it. But all of a sudden, he sensed them around him. Vishous on his right, Jane on the left.

They were talking to him, their words once again overlaying until the syllables became like music, the individual components nothing to be teased apart, the totality something that both eased him and increased his torment.

In the same way a piano chord could both touch the heart and warn the soul in a straddling of sharps and flats.

Their expressions, of caring, of concern… of love… gutted him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispered. “But I am very certain… that you both have been better to me than I deserve.”

As Vishous muttered curses, the lies that had been constructed and that supported Allhan’s stupid, fumbling attempts to mastermind all that he had were an ugly contamination in his mind, choking out everything good that he could have felt at a moment like this.

“I’m so sorry,” he choked out as Doc Jane wrapped him in a hug. “I don’t know why you’re doing… any of this.”

Clearing his throat, Vishous broke off and went over to stab his hand-rolled out in the ashtray he’d put on the coffee table. Then he straightened and pulled up his leathers like he was trying to find some self-control.

“I’ve wondered the same thing, Al.” As his mate gasped, Vishous shrugged and turned around. “It’s the truth. You and I decided never to have young, but here we are. With a son.”

While Allhan recoiled, Doc Jane all but threw up her hands and bugged her forest-green eyes at her mate. “Ah, listen, Allhan, what he means is—”

“You… think of me like that?” Allhan whispered.

Doc Jane pumped the proverbial air brakes again. “We’re not trying to replace anybody. You haven’t talked a lot about your mahmen and sire, but we are not looking to—”

“Those parents of yours didn’t fucking deserve you.” As Doc Jane’s mouth fell open, Vishous’s shoulders rolled again with dismissal. “I said what I said. Who the fuck deserts their pretrans son, leaving him to wait like a fucking dog at a house with no food, no running water, no electricity, and a cell phone with one bar of service and no battery left. Oh, and without any money. Who the fuck does that.”

“Holy shit,” Jane groaned. “It’s so not okay to lay it out like that.”

“Why, it’s the truth. Al not only knows it, he’s living the shit.” Vishous picked up another hand-rolled and lit things. “Reality is what it is.”

“Annnnnnd not everything needs a bright light. Especially right now, okay? Thanks.”

“My point is—”

“Maybe best made some other time—”

“All we want you to know, Al, is that you can ask for help.” Vishous looked at his mate pointedly. “Right? That’s the bottom-line message. You can come to us for help. About anything.”

“Ah, yes, that’s right,” she rushed in. Like she was worried the Brother would get off track again. “You can absolutely ask us for anything. And you don’t need to look at us as parents, or anything, if that makes you feel uncomfortable. We can just be resources for you, however you choose to define that, in whatever way you think we can be helpful.”

Vishous regarded the glowing tip of the hand-rolled. Then his shrewd, diamond eyes returned to Allhan. “I’ve never been a parent, so I don’t know how to do that shit. But I promise that I can help you, and even if I can’t, I’ll find someone who will. Jane’s the same. You can always trust that we’ll be there for you. Wherever you go. Whatever time of day or night. However far off into the future.”

“That’s correct,” Jane agreed in a gentle voice. “That’s… exactly right.”

Allhan went back to staring at the duffle with the guns and the ammo. “I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“That makes two of us,” Vishous muttered as Jane groaned. “But like I said, reality is what it is, and I wouldn’t change a thing. This is where we are, true?”

Doc Jane put her hand on Allhan’s shoulder. “I do think that the right people come into our lives at the right times for the right reasons. And what happens next is… fate.”

“I had the exact same thought not long ago,” Vishous murmured.

Allhan forced himself to nod because he did agree with them. The problem was, fate could be good… or bad.

He knew that he was the latter for them.

And that was a one-sided reality because only he knew it.

For now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Of course the answer was yes, she’d mate t’On.

Like that was ever a question? If it saved her parents’ lives? And everybody else’s?

Although this was mostly about her parents.

As Denne let herself into her private quarters, she shut the door and walked over to her little loveseat in a daze. When she went to sit down, the robe she’d put on ballooned out in all directions, and that was when the color’s meaning came back to her.

Navy blue was mourning.

Well, didn’t that fit.

Her hands shook as she reached up to the short collar to undo the tie and the first of the pearl buttons. When that felt like more effort than she had to give, she let her arms flop down. She was staring at the damp bottom half of the robe as the knock came, and she almost didn’t answer it.

“Yup, I’m here.”

Was she really, though?

t’On opened the way in. He was back with the robing, and the royal purple color with its beautiful sterling silver embroidery was no mistake. A mating was imminent, and she heard chatter out in the hall, the whispers excited as courtiers rushed around with the fresh gossip.

Word traveled fast.

He closed them in together. When she didn’t say anything, his eyes gentled out of their normal reserve. “You’re doing the right thing. You have chosen the correct path.”

Like there had been any decision to make?

“What about you?” she asked roughly.

“As I told you, my loyalty is to the Territory.”

She wanted to remind him that it had been to her mother earlier, but that seemed bitchy.

“We shall have to get you out of that robe,” he said.

Denne traced his handsome dark face, and told herself she could do this. There were so many worse fates than mating someone who was as physically appealing as him—and as a bonus, getting to save your parents, your community, your entire way of life and traditions? Right?

Just sign me up, she thought grimly.

“It’s wet,” he said, as if she wouldn’t know if he didn’t tell her. “Your robing is wet.”

As she looked him up and down, a chill went through her body. This arrangement was going to come with obligations of the physical variety—and she hadn’t considered that. She’d been too busy measuring all of the top-line pressures.

“Denne?” t’On prompted. “May I help you with your robing?”

Given his polite patience, it was clear he didn’t mean anything in a sexual fashion. At least not right now.

“I’ll do it later.” She massaged her aching temples. “So, we need to get planning for the ceremony.”

“Yes.” He inclined his head. “It will take a little time to prepare for the great event—”

She surged up from the cushions and crossed the distance between them. Before t’On could react, she took his face and brought him down to her mouth. As their lips met, she tilted her head, and kissed him like she meant it.

The instant stiffness in his body told her everything she needed to know.

And what a relief.

Breaking the connection, she nodded and stepped back. “Good.”

As she turned away and went back to where she’d been sitting, she was aware she’d shocked him, but come on. Surely he’d done the math on exactly how heirs happened. And it definitely made it easier if sex was just a biological function for him, too.

“So, you were saying.” When he didn’t continue, she prompted, “About getting ready for the ceremony?”

He remained utterly frozen.

“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “I am prepared to follow through on this. But I am not in love with you, and I don’t expect you to be in love with me. Frankly, it’s easier if we just keep this a transactional arrangement. And I am not going to be bearing any young anytime soon. I’m going to continue to go to Sal’s, I am going to live my life, and you are going to continue to serve my mother, your Queen.”

A hard expression came over his face. “No, you will be my mate, and you will prepare to take over the throne. As such, you will comport yourself in a respectful fashion.”

“No, I will continue to live my life, and that will mean I am going to Sal’s to do my job, and my mother will—”

“That ‘job’ is not part of your destiny.” His eyes flashed peridot. “It is beneath your dignity, and even if it were not, it is unacceptable to me that my shellan interdigitates with the outside world of humans. There has already been too much of that lately.”

Denne cocked a brow. “I thought we were compromising.”

“Not to that extent. Humans are our enemies, or has that not been made clear? If they are not a direct threat themselves, they are the feeder system for inductions to the Lessening Society. We need to isolate and protect ourselves, and your continuing to go out, night after night, and be around them—”

“Keeps me fucking sane, okay?” She leaned forward. “And if you want me to do this, you’re going to relax with the demands.”

“I am not asking you to do anything. You are choosing to save the—”

She shot back to her feet. “I’m not choosing shit! Are you kidding me? I haven’t been able to choose anything my whole fucking life, and that is not changing now. No offense—and I mean that—but I don’t want to mate you, and honestly, I don’t really care about the s’Hisbe, either. This is about my parents and that goddamn chart.”

He recoiled in offense. “You do not care about the tradition that bore forth your very existence?”

“My parents’ love did that, thank you very much. Not the Terri- tory.”

“How can you…” t’On seemed to short out. But then a hard expression came over his face. “This is what the modern world has wrought.”

“Excuse me?”

“You go out there, you interact with humans, other vampires, and it contaminates your heart, your mind, until you are—”

“You want to talk about choice? I’d say that you should choose your words very carefully right now. And there is nothing wrong with finding things outside these walls to do, to learn, to know. It’s the way we will survive into the future. We have to understand the world we’re in, not just withdraw and expect everything to be okay.”

“No.” t’On’s eyes raked up and down her. “You are a product of the very thing that must be stopped if we are to survive.”

“We are surviving. The more we learn to make the outside work for us, the better off we’ll be. The Black Dagger Brotherhood and King Wrath have struck the right balance.”

“You get this from your father.” t’On’s mouth flattened. “Your sire has too much contact with the Brothers and that King because of your uncle. They are not the example we want to emulate.”

“What the hell are you talking about—”

t’On put his hand up, and seemed to make a concerted effort to gather his self-control. “Let us not argue. None of this matters anyway.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m all for that. You stop trying to fit me into a hole, and we’ll get along just fine. Keep talking shit like this, and I’ll make your life a living hell.”

There was a long silence. “I shall not let that happen.”

“Attaboy.”

Except then she told herself she had to chill, too. They were going to be stuck together for a very long time, so there would need to be some meeting in the middle ground. But what that was not going to include was her being plugged into the tradwife socket just because he wanted to live in the nineteen hundreds.

“Look, t’On, I don’t want to argue with you, I really don’t.” Denne let her head fall back. “We are going to get along, and we’re going to keep things together.”

She was actually talking to herself here: He could back out, too, after all. There were limits to duty, even for a male like him, and although she wasn’t about to sacrifice herself on the altar of good-little-girls, she didn’t want to offend him so much that he fucked her off.

Besides, eventually she would be Queen and have all the power anyway.

“Tell me about the ceremony preparation.”

t’On closed his eyes like he was willing to try as well. “I shall see to everything, and ensure that it happens as soon as possible.”

“So like a month or two?”

“Oh, no. A couple of nights is all I shall need.”

“Great.” Fuck. “That’s just… really great.”

There was an awkward moment, then he bowed to her, turned, and left.

After the door was shut again, she realized that he had not backed out, as was the tradition. Courtiers and servants were never supposed to present their heels to the Queen or the heir. For a male who was supposedly into tradition, he was clearly capable of tossing some things out.

Then again, she’d been kind of a bitch.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

As Allhan stretched out on his bed in the dark, he was back where he’d started earlier, but he felt like a different male. Again. He was really getting tired of transitions.

Too many of them. Way too fucking many.

Down in the living area, he heard Vishous and Jane talking in low voices. And then the door out into the promenade opened and closed. After that… silence. The kind that resonated into the center of his chest.

Or maybe that was his fucking guilt.

With the quiet pressing into him, he brought up his hand. His cell phone was attached to his palm, to the point where he wondered if he was going to have to have Doc Jane surgically remove it.

Hell, she could take his whole arm if she wanted to.

Seemed like not even a quarter of the penance that should be required of him. After that little pep talk from them? He felt even worse.

With a curse, he turned the phone over and checked the time.

“Don’t do it,” he told himself.

He was not in the right headspace at the moment. Certainly not living the right kind of life. Never the sort of person to do anything romantic—

The next thing he knew, the phone was up against his ear and ringing. And in the back of his mind, he wondered if maybe Denne had deliberately put in the wrong number. Like was a Meineke muffler shop going to answer? The Caldwell Public Library?

Dentist’s office.

Okay, that was stupid. All those human places would be closed now so the only thing he’d get would be voicemail—

“Hello.”

The sound of the female’s voice was like an instant reset, and he blinked stupidly in the darkness.

Then he released his breath in a rush. “Ah, hi. Hi. It’s me. Allhan? We met down by the river last night. And tonight, too. I was—”

Her chuckle was low, and, at least to his ears, sensual. Then again, she could have sneezed and he would still have thought it sounded better than any OnlyFans.

“Do you honestly think I don’t remember you?” she murmured.

“I…” He felt like it had been decades since he’d seen her. “I didn’t want to take for granted that you wouldn’t forget me.”

There was a long pause. So long that he had to worry she was rethinking the whole answer thing. Or giving her number to him in the first place.

“Oh, I don’t know, Al. Those kisses we shared were pretty unforgettable. And as I said, it was the first time I was somebody else’s maiden voyage, so to speak.”

He frowned. “You sound different.”

“Do I.”

“Yes. Are you home?”

As he waited for her to answer, his eyes roamed around the darkness of the bedroom. Though the space was finite, the fact that his eyes couldn’t translate its corners and confines into anything visual made him feel like he was floating in the night sky.

“I’m where I live,” she said eventually.

“Me, too.”

“And where’s that?”

Suddenly, he pictured the yellow Colonial up at street level, and the whole development of tidy houses. The staircase down underground. The promenade that brought him to this residence.

“Nowhere special.” Just the First Family’s sacred address, guarded by the Brotherhood. “You?”

“Same.”

He had to laugh. “Well, I think I am going to imagine you…”

“Where.” She sighed and there was a rustling as if she were moving around. “Where do you see me?”

“Hmmm. Let me think.” There was more shifting, and then a thump thump. “Are those your shoes? Boots, I mean?”

That chuckle of hers came again and made him see her smiling, a flush warming his skin under his clothes.

“Yup, those are boots. It’s been a long night, and it’s time for me to”—she grunted softly—“stretch out.”

“I’m lying on my bed, too.” He sat up in a rush. “Not in a weird way, though. Like, I didn’t call you because I was naked and expecting—”

“Don’t worry. I know you’re too much of a gentlemale for that.”

He nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “I am. I swear.”

Or parts of him were. Oh, God. The double-life crap was killing him. Literally.

As he lay back down and fell silent, the quiet between them became as the contours of the room in the shadows, infinite, uncontaining, until he thought that they were both floating in the darkness.

“Is your light on?” he asked. “If you have one by your bed?”

“No, I’m in the dark.”

“Me, too.”

Allhan curled over onto his side, and put the phone under his ear. Closing his eyes, he listened to her soft breathing and thought that it was precious. She was precious. And not just because she was beautiful, and mysterious because she was a stranger, and…

Well, and also not because she was one hell of a kisser.

No, in this moment, she was precious because she dimmed the screaming in his head. For all the things that were eating him alive, she was powerful enough to calm the storm and settle his inner waters.

He had started his journey to this hell he had created driven by so many emotions: Anger, revenge, the need to protect his sister. And things had only gotten darker.

But in this silence, he found a measure of something he had never known.

Peace.

Denne knew she had to get off the phone. She had no right to encourage this male, not with everything that was going on for her. She needed to tell him that she was sorry to have led him on, that she was not right in the head, and that she wished him a good life.

Then she was going to kill the call, block him, and go to sleep.

So she’d be bright and fucking cheerful when she checked in at Sal’s at five—

“What do you do for work?” she asked.

Fuck.

“IT. Information technology, that is—but I’m sure you know what the initials stand for.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, I don’t know how to do this.”

“Talk? You’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

“I’m nervous. Which is not a great look when you’re a guy trying to…”

“Trying to do what?” She heard her own voice get lower. Not in volume, tone. “What are you trying to do, Al?”

It was amazing how a person could tear in two and still remain in one piece: Half of her was all no-contact-no-involvement for so many reasons, but a deeper part of her was searching for exactly the kind of pull she felt now.

Unlike with everything else going on in her life… she wanted to be on this phone. She wanted to talk to him.

Al was signal, when she was surrounded by noise.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I want to impress you and I wish I had game. I should have paid more attention to the experts when I had the chance at the club.”

She thought about what he’d told her earlier, about the males who had been killed. And she found herself wanting to know more, and not because she was morbidly curious. She wanted to help in some way. But that was not the kind of thing you threw into a phone call. Not unless you wanted to blow it up—also, what if Al got upset? He could hang up and she wouldn’t know whether he was okay.

For some reason, she couldn’t live with that.

“Game is overrated, Al.”

That was when the sideways arrived. One moment, she was coloring inside the lines, recognizing that she was where she was, and he was a normal guy who deserved so much more than being led on by the likes of her. The next, she was remembering the feel of his lips against her own, so tentative—until he got the hang of it.

And fuck, he was a quick learner.

“What do you do at Sal’s?” he asked.

That knife he’d deep-sixed, she thought. God, he’d saved her ass, hadn’t he.

“Just office work. I’m the manager, I guess you’d call it. Pay the bills, settle the accounts, approve the staff schedule. That kind of stuff.”

“That’s a nice job.”

“Yeah, I guess. So do you work on computers, like fixing them when they’re broken, or going inside of them?”

“I’ve never heard it put like that.” His laugh was soft, and she pictured him smiling in the moonlight even though he was indoors. “And I work inside them. I guess you could call me a hacker. AI hasn’t taken over all of the jobs, especially not with the systems I work with.”

“What systems are those?” Jesus, add a basket of bread and two beers and they were doing the date thing. “Do I even know what a system is?”

And t’On was worried about her having too much contact with the outside world? Fuck no, she had no clue what she was saying here. But it didn’t matter. She just liked hearing Al talk.

“I work with private networks, doing security and data analysis. It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re an expert, aren’t you.” She laughed when he didn’t respond. “And I’m guessing you’re really smart.”

The next pause that followed made her think she’d offended him somehow. Hard to imagine how that was possible with a compliment, though.

“I used to think I was,” he said roughly. “There was a time when I thought I was the smartest male on the planet.”

“Not anymore?”

There was another stretch of quiet. “I grew out of that fallacy. Just because I can break into any network and get AI systems to mine for data patterns more efficiently than everybody else around me doesn’t mean I’m super intelligent. It just means that I’m a machine, in a way. A machine surrounded by people who are actually living their lives.”

She thought of what she’d agreed to do for her parents. For the s’Hisbe.

“I know exactly what that feels like,” she whispered.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want that for you.”

The image of him staring out over the river to that glass house came back to her. She could picture every detail of his profile, the set of his body, the focus that stilled his breath and likely even his heart. There had been great pain etched into his features, and it was clear that he would do anything to protect his sister, to the point of laying down his own life for her.

She felt the same way about her parents.

“You’re a male of worth, you know that.”

His voice cracked. “God, I wish that were true.”

“It is.”

“Well, I’ll say this, Denne. If there is ever anything I can do for you, just tell me what you need. Anything.”

The vow was both earnest and powerful, and it unlocked something inside of her: Even though Allhan was all but a stranger, he was different because… he made her feel different.

“Else,” she tacked on.

“I’m sorry?”

“Anything else. You’ve already helped me, haven’t you.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said softly. “Not for that knife stuff.”

She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her. “I really do—”

“Oh, God,” he blurted. “I can’t get you out of my mind. I think about you even when the world feels like it’s falling down around me. I close my eyes and I’m back in that forest, staring into your eyes, seeing your face in the moonlight, watching the cold breeze move your hair. I smell your scent, I hear your voice, I feel your presence. And it’s the very best part of my night, my day, my hour, my minute—”

As the rush was cut off abruptly, Denne swallowed a curse and sat up. Then wondered if the connection had ended.

“Al? Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have said all that—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “You should have.”

Fates save them both, but… she felt the same way about him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Look, I just don’t want you to think that I go around killing humans.”

As Denne’s voice percolated through the phone under his ear, Allhan couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or not. He didn’t know how long they’d been on together. He wasn’t sure whether he had much battery left. But if his phone died, he was going to call her on the burner, and to hell with keeping that number on the down-low.

“I know that there’s plenty of those rats without tails to spare,” she continued. “But he was hurting her, and you just have to step in, you know? Like, I couldn’t let that happen. That’s not the kind of person I am—sometimes, you have to be karma.”

Allhan started nodding. Then remembered she couldn’t see him. “Yeah. Totally.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to add: I so get it. I totally don’t kill people other than my father.

“You did the right thing,” he said instead.

“I really miss that truck, though.” She laughed. “I loved it so much. I just got the damn thing, too.”

“It was a really nice truck.”

What the hell was he saying? It didn’t matter. He just wanted her to stay on the phone with him, and she could talk about the weather, sportsball, nothing at all—and he was good with it. This call was the first thing that had made him feel anything other than dread when he lay here in this bed.

“Thank you,” he heard himself say.

“For what?”

“This.”

The soft laugh that vibrated in his ear continued into his blood. And then his mind went in a completely different direction from murder and gratitude.

“What are you wearing?” The second he realized what he’d spoken out loud, he wanted to kick himself in the head. “Oh, my God, I didn’t mean—”

“Jeans. A black turtleneck. Not exactly sexy, sorry.”

On her? It sounded downright delicious. Then again, she could have been wearing overalls and barn boots, and he would have thought it better than a bikini.

Fortunately, she laughed again. “A bikini?”

“Oh… fuck. Did I say that—”

“Yeah, you did.” Now she was really giggling. “And you’ve got more game than you think.”

Maybe if he was playing Cards Against Vampires.

“You and I do not have the same definition of that word,” he muttered.

Ah, yes, now he was tapping on The Princess Bride.

“Listen, Al, the whole thing behind ‘game’ is getting someone’s attention, right? Because you’re attracted to them, and you want them to notice you.”

“True.”

“Guess what.”

“What?”

“I’ve noticed you.” Her voice was like velvet coming through the stupid phone. “So, how long ago was your transition?”

“Like a week.”

“Oh, wow. That recent? You must be really sore and stiff, still—and getting used to your new body.”

“I feel like I’m standing on a stool every time I look down at my feet. And I don’t know where my arms and legs are half the time. And my hair is a completely different texture. It used to be kind of frizzy.”

“It’s a lot to get used to.”

“For sure.” He thought about how he’d woken up. “Yeah. Really.”

More silence, and he frowned into the darkness. Was it possible they were both circling the same thing? Was she thinking about the other changes that came from the transition, changes that didn’t have to do with height or muscles or deeper voices for males.

“Al.”

“Mmm?”

“What’s on your mind right now?” she said huskily.

In response, things woke up in a serious way down at his hips. “Are you sure you want me to answer that?”

“Yes, I am.”

As his eyes widened in the darkness, he pictured her face upturned to his own, her lips parted because they’d been kissing. The sensations of heat and need came back to him in a rush, the velvety softness of her mouth as vivid as it had been when his had been on hers.

“I’m thinking about you out in the clearing. Right after we…”

“Kissed,” she finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“And what’s happening for you. When you think of kissing me.”

Allhan looked downward, even though he could see nothing of his lower body. He knew that his dick was still attached to him and working just fine, though—because there was a heartbeat behind the fly of his jeans.

“I…”

“Say it,” she purred. “Tell me what’s going on?”

“I…”

“Are you hard, Al?”

“Oh, fuck, yes.” He rolled over onto his back and moved the cell phone to his other ear. “I’m so hard.”

“Are you thinking about what it was like to have my tongue licking into you.”

As he moaned a “yes,” his free hand went past his ribbed abdomen and pushed at the waistband of his jeans. Things had gotten really constricted down there, and bent at a bad angle again.

“How do I feel to you? When you’re kissing me,” she drawled.

“You’re… perfect.” He grunted and moved one of his legs out to the side. When that only made things tighter, he straightened his knees. “You’re always perfect.”

“That is not true.” She made a purring sound again. “Where are your hands right now?”

“One’s holding the phone.”

“And the other?”

“It’s down by my waist. I… ah, I’m a little uncomfortable. In my jeans.”

That was a ridiculous understatement. With every syllable she spoke, he was getting harder and harder, to the point where his erection was getting strangled. He was not about to go solve the problem, though. He knew without a doubt that if he were to touch that area in any way—

“Why’s that.”

“Why’s what?” he babbled.

There was another pause, and then she let out a sexy little sigh. “Why are you uncomfortable?”

“Denne, are you sure that you want to… go there.”

She was quiet for a moment. “We already have. It started with that kiss, and I don’t think we’re going to be finished with each other until you’re coming inside of me. Do you?”

He sucked in a breath

“Did I shock you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “You spoke the truth I wanted to hear.”

Denne rubbed her thighs together as she pictured Allhan lying on some unfrilly bed, a couple of flat pillows under his head, some dark-colored bedspread wadding up under his restless legs. The lights would be dim or off altogether, and he’d have to be quiet because his roommates were next door—

Did he have roommates? Parents, maybe? Considering he was just out of his transition.

She’d never asked him if he lived with anybody, and she wasn’t going to. She couldn’t. Questions like that were reciprocal in nature, and she really didn’t want to stop this. Whatever was going on with him, whatever this was, she needed it right now, as she stared down the barrel of a loveless mating.

As soon as that ceremony with t’On happened, she was going to be faithful to the male she did not love and did not want. But she was not mated right now.

And these stolen moments with Al were going to have to last her a lifetime as she did her duty.

“Have you ever touched yourself?” she said in a throaty way.

“No.”

Her brows popped, and she heard the sound of screeching tires in her head. “Really? So this is your first time… ever.”

“Well, pretrans can’t get… you know.”

“You aren’t a pretrans anymore, though.”

“No, I’m not.”

Denne felt an uncoiling deep inside of herself. “Have I mentioned how glad I am you survived the change.”

And it was weird. Even though there was no future for them, she wanted to know absolutely everything about Al—well, except for the parts of his life that were going to be painful to hear about. Intended matings. Feedings that weren’t with her. Roommates who were not other males, but females who were unrelated to him, and beautiful, and available.

“Have you…”

“I’ve been on some dates,” she said, when his voice trailed off.

“But no one you’ve fallen in love with?”

“No, I’ve never been in love. And that’s not going to happen for me.”

With painful clarity, a bright light suddenly shone on the rest of her life, all the years ahead of her, the decades, the centuries. And the reality of her future with t’On leached the tingling heat from her, sure as if a drain had been opened in her heart and everything sexual she’d been anticipating just now had funneled out of her.

“Al, I’m not sure I should be your first… about anything.”

“It’s too late for that, Denne. You said it yourself.”

What the hell was she doing here. He should have this with someone who was going to stay in his life longer than a couple of nights.

“Tell me what to do,” he groaned. “Teach me what to do. Please.”

Biting her lower lip, she closed her eyes. For all the reasons she shouldn’t keep going, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to deny that pleading tone of his: She had the sense that he was as desperate to feel something good as she was. Even if she didn’t know his why, the sorrow and sadness in him were tangible.

And not just when he was staring across the river at that glass house or talking about his sister.

“Will you tell me what you want me to do?” he begged.

To get back into the mood, Denne returned to the hypothetical bedroom she had him in and once again imagined him lying down, one leg cocked out to the side, an enormous erection straining the fly of a pair of jeans like the ones he’d had on by the Hudson.

“Al, I want you to put your free hand on it—”

His throaty gasp was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard, and she pictured him arching back into those thin pillows he might or might not have owned.

“I want you to stroke your hard shaft over those blue jeans.” As he groaned again, her own body loosened, warmth pooling between her thighs, her breasts feeling heavy. “Are you going up and down on your cock?”

He let out a long hiss, and she knew that his fangs had descended out of his upper jaw.

“Does that feel good?”

“I can’t do it for long or I’m going to—”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want you to make a mess of your jeans.” She tsk-tsked. “Undo the top button, Allhan. But don’t put the phone down. I want to hear you when you tug on it.”

There was a series of grunts, and fuck her very much, but she suddenly had him in her room with her. He was on his knees between her legs, his hands working on the front of his jeans, undoing that button, unzipping things until the hard, blunt-headed length of him popped out.

“Oh, fuuuuck,” he moaned. “Now what.”

“Unzip them.”

Denne squeezed her thighs together again, and fantasized about him circling his shaft with his hand. “Grip your cock, Al. Do it now—”

The rolling, hoarse moan that came through the phone told her that he was following her directions like the good male he was—and God help them both, but she was seeing herself spreading her legs even farther as he led with his head down to her core.

“Stroke yourself,” she commanded as she rolled her hips and scissored her knees.

More moaning from him, and then heavy breathing. In her imagination, she had him entering her, and moving in and out, nice and slow, his hips rolling and retreating. So deep and then out of her. Deep again. Pulling out.

“Faster,” she demanded. “Fuck me faster, Allhan…”

While she rubbed her legs, she ground the heel of her hand into the top of her sex, her own fangs dropping down as he panted harshly.

“I’m coming,” he said in a strangled, deep voice. “I think I’m—oh, fuck—”

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop—”

“Oh, God, I’m coming—”

Denne rolled onto her stomach and barked his name into her pillow to make sure nobody heard her out in the hallway. As spears of pleasure shot through her, Al was making an unholy noise that was absolutely the best thing she had ever heard. Then he bit out her name, and she knew that was when the orgasm was happening for him, too.

The idea that he was coming brought a fresh release onto her.

In the midst of the swirling pleasure, she knew that his first time was also her very, very best time.

And they weren’t even in person.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The following evening, Allhan went to work even though he’d been told not to. As he re-formed in front of the huge red barn that housed Vishous’s FT Headquarters, he zipped his hoodie up a little tighter to his neck against the cold—and decided he was never going to look at fastenings in the same way again.

Nope. Never.

Approaching the door, he looked up to the security camera, and immediately the lock was sprung for him. The second he pulled things open, the scent of pine boards mixed with a barely perceptible undertone of electrical components hit him, and it was strange. He felt like he was home.

The great bay of raftered space arched over the dozens of workstations, and as he started walking down the aisle between all the desks, he wondered whether any of the males and females sitting with their heads in those monitors ever looked up at what was above them. It was such a nice view, row after row of the broad ceiling beams with their geometric angles meeting at the center line of the entire structure.

Leveling his stare, he focused on the far end, at the glass walls of Vishous’s stainless steel office. The panels were frosted, which meant the Brother had put the privacy filter on again. Or that it was still engaged from before.

Just as well. Allhan totally wasn’t supposed to be here, and he was hoping to get in and out quickly.

His desk was off in the rear corner, facing the wall. As he pulled out the rolling chair, he glanced back at the IT dream team Vishous had built up to precise specifications, just as he’d constructed the barn, and kitted out the sophisticated network of servers and custom web-based resources.

All to keep the Brotherhood, the fighters, and the species at large safe, organized, and getting what they needed on all levels.

Allhan had been working here for about five months. Tracking everything he saw. Assessing the infrastructures. Making recommendations for improvements, debugging laptops and computers remotely, checking for infiltrations and possible hacking.

From the start, he’d done the work to his very best ability. He’d also waited… patiently.

And then the invitation to go home and have Last Meal with Vishous had been presented to him—

A couple of males glanced up from their monitors, their brows raised with expectation like they were prepared to give him anything he wanted. There was some envy in their eyes, too.

If they only knew, he thought as he sat down and started the sign-in process.

While his fingers flew over the keys, he liked the fact that Vishous still adhered to the old school keyboard way of doing things. There was something very satisfying about typing commands as opposed to the neural-linx technology that most of the human race used. And personally, he didn’t like the idea of anybody potentially having control over his mind.

Not that he hadn’t fucked his own head up.

On that note…

The IP address of his particular connection to the internet was so impossible to isolate, it might as well have been air, but even still, as he back-doored into the Caldwell Police Department servers, he was careful to give himself a raincoated one that was easily discoverable.

And traceable right to one of the CPD’s own detective desks.

It wasn’t hard to do. During the day, he’d scoped things out on his burner phone, tapping on entry points, examining the structure of the city’s municipal servers and network. He was not impressed with the rudimentary shit. To the point that he wondered why humans didn’t take greater care to protect their information, especially around victims of crimes.

Then again, data on humans was a cheap commodity. They were tracked wherever they went, whatever they did.

Also, not his problem.

As he infiltrated the appropriate database and started his search, he kept expecting to be caught. Not by the CPD. He was just another member of their detective team, as far as they knew.

No, by someone here.

Allhan glanced over his shoulder again. Everybody was still hard at work, and given that there was no rap music bumping in Vishous’s office, he guessed that the Brother was not in there.

He turned his focus back to the monitor and continued his survey of entries. The reason he did not hide his tracks in terms of the internal systems at HQ, or do this on his burner, was because he couldn’t bear doing anything else shady.

All this activity would be logged in the work monitoring system for FT, and he was going to be totally honest if someone asked him what he was doing.

They weren’t going to like it. But at least he wasn’t adding to his list of transgressions.

And besides, no one was going to care about evidence seized at a human crime scene.

The lying began on the doorstep of Safe Place.

And the falsities that he spoke had been created the week before he went there. He’d devised the backstory after departing the family mansion for the apartment he’d rented the night before he killed his father. He’d been so busy getting his planning straight about Carmen and her future that he hadn’t had much mental space left over to figure out the identity he needed to assume.

The night that he decided he was ready had been warm. Muggy. Oppressive.

And had to hope he kept all the details straight.

That was the worry going through his mind as he got out of the back of the robo-taxi. He waited until the car had K-turned around and disappeared before approaching the front porch of the Colonial. It was such a lovely place, with kind, soft light glowing in the windows on all floors, and people walking from cozy room to cozy room.

The ugliness he represented was like a toxic cloud that followed him, and he tried to step lightly as he mounted the stairs.

Like that might lessen the impact of what he was going to try to do.

Standing at the door, he stared at the wreath of flowers that had been hung on the panels. They were silk. He couldn’t smell anything—

This was wrong. But unless he wanted to run the risk of slayers looking for his sister, he had no choice—

The door opened. “Hi. May we help you?”

Allhan took a deep breath. But nothing came out.

The female had long, dark hair and pretty eyes, and was wearing khaki shorts and a white polo with the collar turned down. Her smile was gentle, but her stare was sharp, as if she were assessing aspects of him that he not only couldn’t hide, but he didn’t know existed.

Dearest Lassiter, he could not do this—

“No, no,” she said as she reached out. “Don’t go.”

Allhan glanced down and realized he’d backed up all the way to the steps. If he went any farther, he was going to fall off and land on his head.

“You’ve come to the right place.” She smiled again. “My name is Bitty. I work here.”

He glanced over his shoulder. If only he could run down the lane, catch that car, and make this all go away.

“Would you like to come in?”

Except what about Carmen.

“I…”

The female—Bitty?—stepped aside and indicated the way into a foyer that was comfortable and welcoming. And from the interior, a scent. Chocolate chip cookies?

“Nothing will hurt you here,” she said softly.

Deeper inside, voices were going back and forth, females talking with animation. And there was laughter. And music, the soothing kind.

“I-I’m sorry.”

He dropped his eyes, and reminded himself that he had to bury his aristocratic accent. And the fact that his stutter was riding him hard was not artifice.

“Just come inside for a little bit. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. But at least we can talk?”

Allhan nodded because he didn’t trust his voice, and as he stepped over the threshold, he could feel more eyes on him. All he could do was stare at the floor.

“Hi,” another female said. “I’m Ilana, one of the social workers here.”

He couldn’t look at either of them, and suddenly, his head was blank. What the hell had he been going to say?

“Come over here,” the social worker murmured. “We can have an easy chat. Bitty will stay with us.”

The next thing he knew, he was in a small room with four armchairs set around a coffee table. Short shelves mounted on the wall at various levels held a collection of bud vases, decorative teapots, and embroidered sayings his jumpy eyes couldn’t translate.

“Why don’t you sit anywhere you feel comfortable.”

Well, that was going to be a long wait for all of them.

He chose the closest chair, and the timing was good. His legs felt like they were going to buckle under him. As the two females sat down, they arranged themselves comfortably. He, on the other hand, stayed perched on the seat.

“Can you tell us your name?”

“A-Allhan.”

He knew that it would be best to pick a pseudonym that was close to his given one. Using the second half of his name ensured that if someone called it out of the blue or when he didn’t expect it, he would respond by instinct.

“Okay, Allhan.”

He sensed the gentle smile that came his way rather than saw it because he just couldn’t look at either of them. For all his planning, he had ignored his own conscience, and the flare of self-hatred that arrived made him want to throw up.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the door, and a murmured “Come in.”

His nostrils flared at the scent of toast and eggs, and he had to look up.

A tray was put in front of him, brought in by a female with the same gentle face as the others.

“If there’s anything else you want,” she said, “just give me a holler and I’ll make it happen.”

Then the door shut again.

As he stared at the toast and watched the butter stripes melt, his eyes watered. When blinking didn’t clear them, he reached out for the red and white gingham napkin that had been folded and placed under the stainless steel fork. It was soft from many washings, and when he pressed it to his face, he smelled a delicate laundry detergent.

Hiding behind the folds, he struggled to rein in his emotions.

And failed.

The weeping was unexpected. Not part of his plan. Nothing he could control, however.

All he could do was let it out, and while he struggled, a part of him split off from the core and just observed: He couldn’t remember ever being unable to call on his intellect. His mind was the strongest thing about him, and that was going to be true even if he made it through the change.

And he thought the crying would never end, yet no emotion, no matter how strongly felt, was immortal. As with all living things, there was a crest and a decline.

And then it died.

In the aftermath, he dropped the damp napkin into his lap and twisted it. A shuddering breath left him, and then his itchy, swollen eyes returned to the food.

“Is there anyone we can call for you?” one of the two females asked.

He started speaking in a dead tone. And it stayed that way.

“I have no parents. Th-they left me behind. I waited, and waited, for them to come back.” The tears welled again, and he didn’t have the energy to even try to hold them in. “I sat on the f-front stoop as the sunlight and the darkness came and repeated and came again. I just thought they would come back. I always th-thought… they’d come back.”

Like the portion of his name that he had chosen for himself, there was truth in the lies, and though he had deliberately constructed the particular parallels, he hadn’t had to work hard to develop the fiction. His mahmen had been a pill-addled addict hiding behind diamonds and dresses as she anesthetized herself into her own gilded coffin. And his father? An undisciplined dandy who had spent a fortune keeping up with the Joneses, and then been forced to make a deal with the devil to stay afloat.

Information for money.

It was such a lowest-common-denominator cliché.

And Chritophe’s arrogance had led to his exposure.

He hadn’t wanted anybody to know about the finances. But he’d let the son who stuttered and he did not respect process all the household bills. When $100,000 worth of crypto had come just in time, Allhan had been confused. His sire knew nothing of the blockchain.

But Allhan did.

The wallet it had come from had been untraceable.

When a second infusion arrived the following week, Allhan started to track his father’s movements. Not himself, in person. He couldn’t dematerialize and couldn’t drive.

With a locator signal he bought off of Amazon.

And there was no reason for his father to ever go down by the river.

The next level of surveillance was a small audio transistor, tucked into the lapel of his father’s monogrammed coat. Chritophe’s butler laid out the clothes for the following evening every dawn, and it took a week of swapping the tiny device from jacket to jacket before he heard the discussion with the lesser. What was sought and promised. The terms of the money. The threats that the slayer made about Carmen and Allhan, and how it would come to the mansion and destroy everything. His sire’s bored response?

“That will not be necessary. I shall deliver the Audience House’s location to you readily—”

“I want where the King lives, too,” the slayer had bit out. “I want his Queen and son. And the Black Dagger Brotherhood.”

There had been a pause. “Fine, but it will cost you more. For that, I will need ten million. Bribes are going to be necessary if that’s what you want.”

Allhan had been horrified, and not just about the callous disregard, and financial greed. Courtesy of the monitoring, he had had to listen to his father for hours, and in doing so, had learned things that… disgusted him.

Heard things… that terrified him.

His father was not just the shallow egoist Allhan had long known and sought to avoid. No, he was a depraved male with evil appetites that turned the stomach. And he had done… terrible things to Carmen. For a long time. And after she had gone through her transition and was no longer fit for his perverted attractions, he had moved on to others.

Brokered by humans.

It had all been too terrible for Allhan to contemplate. And among the most frightening parts? That the abuse that had happened to Carmen had occurred beneath the very roof Allhan lived under.

No wonder their mahmen had sought such relief in chemicals. She had been trapped by the glymera traditions, unable to control her hellren, unwilling to stand up for her young.

At least, that helplessness was what Allhan edited in.

Given how cold she had always been to him and his sister, it was entirely possible she did not care, either.

In which case, both of them had been monsters.

“I am alone,” he concluded to the two females.

In the silence that followed, he had no idea what he’d said and became paranoid that he had spoken out loud what had gone through his mind as his lips had been moving.

The true story out. Which would blow his cover.

“No, Allhan,” came a compassionate response. “You’re not alone. You’re here with us.”

The other female, the one called Bitty, continued, “We can help you.”

No, he thought. They couldn’t. He was going to have to help himself.

“When was the last time you ate anything, Allhan?”

His eyes returned to the toast. The butter was all melted now, and that meant the eggs were probably cold.

“I don’t remember,” he said hoarsely as he picked up the fork with a hand that trembled.

Which was the truth. It must have been… the night his father had died? Was that possible? Food had been the last thing on his mind.

And when he couldn’t keep the scrambled eggs on the tines, he settled for the toast.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Something just hadn’t seemed right. So V’d had to do some double-checking.

As he sat in his office in silence, it was behind the frosted privacy screens because he didn’t want anybody to bother him. His head was way too scattered. To the point where, as he stared at the image in front of him, he couldn’t have told Lassiter Himself what one of his computer systems he was using.

Lighting up another hand-rolled, he eased back in his chair. It was funny how the brain tried to edit things when they didn’t fit into patterns of accepted reality. Confirmation bias really was a bitch. True logic, however, demanded a connection to what was actually happening.

Or, at least, it should.

For the twelfth fucking time—or whatever the count was—he forced himself to dismantle the elements of the static picture from the security feed and rebuild the composite:

— shelves full of an entire collection of the Old Laws

— a male sitting in one of the armchairs

— a cell phone in each of the male’s hands

— the time clock on the lower right showing that two hours had passed

— the date

Vishous exhaled a stream of smoke and watched it drift up to the ceiling vent. There was no lingering for the little cloud. The air purification system sucked it up, sent the shit through a HEPA filter, and spit clean oxygen back out. He’d installed the units throughout the facility so that members of his staff wouldn’t be forced to carry the smell of his Turkish tobacco around on their clothes.

Even though cancer wasn’t a risk, not everybody appreciated the unique, pungent fragrance. And it was weird. The concern for other people’s schnozzes was not his usual deal. He wasn’t the kind to worry about other people like that, and the setups had been a last-minute, near afterthought that had delayed him getting his team into the facility by a week.

He still didn’t know why he’d bothered.

Whatever.

V refocused on the screen. The library was one nobody ever really went into at the Wheel. When the Brotherhood and the fighters had moved in there with their families, and the new Audience House had been going full steam ahead, one of the sets of the Old Laws had needed a storage unit, and someone had thought, hey, why not throw them up on some shelves at home base.

The date and the time clock indicated that the feed had come in between roughly eight and ten a.m. this morning.

The male was Allhan.

That was the extent of the details that made sense.

The second phone in Allhan’s hand was the problem.

It was not the one that the guy had been issued when he’d started working at FT. Which shouldn’t be a problem. On the surface, that was. After all, Allhan made his own money, and he could go his own way. He wasn’t required to only use provided technology and communications devices.

It also wasn’t a problem for the male to go into any of the BDB databases. On the surface, that was.

And finally, the fact that the guy was turning off his location features on his provided device shouldn’t be a problem.

On the surface.

True?

V took another drag on the hand-rolled, and then reached forward to zoom in on the other cell. It was not an iPhone, so hey, there was that. But it was also not any particular maker’s phone.

The goddamn thing was a burner—

His own phone started to vibrate beside him, the rattling sound the Samsung made as it boogied across the glass of his desk the kind of thing that would have annoyed the hell out of him. If he hadn’t been doing arithmetic that fucked his head up.

When he’d started going through the various monitoring systems on his networks, he’d intended only to see where else the male had been peeking into. What other databases had been visited by anonymous users. If anything had been tampered with. He’d hated the part of his brain that was so untrusting. Had done his best to reroute the impulse.

There was only one other database that had been logged into.

The species census.

Which contained the names, addresses, contact phones and emails, ages, and bloodline intersections of the entire population of vampires. Not just here in Caldwell, but out west and in the Old Country, too.

This breach hadn’t been like the one that had been flagged at eight a.m.

V had had to work to find it. Whoever had snuck in the back door had been a ghost, tripping no alarms, disturbing nothing, leaving nada behind.

The date of the infiltration was five months ago.

Within one night of Allhan coming to work at FT.

V had discovered it three hours ago at home, and as he’d sat through First Meal, and then come here, the excuses had flowed like water. Hackers were everywhere these days, working to get into all kinds of shit. It was possible that his networks had been tripped over, and whoever had found them just wanted to see what it was all about—and when the information was only a bunch of names, they’d bailed in favor of more lucrative or targeted pursuits.

Except after he’d gone three levels deeper… he’d discovered that the search had been done here.

It had originated… inside his own IT program.

Talk about the call coming from inside the house. And in response, he’d had to look into the logs of all of the males and females who worked for him. None of them had gone into the census files. Not even Allhan.

Supposedly.

But Al was the only person who had the skills to hide his tracks that well.

“Fucking hell,” V muttered before taking another drag.

Getting up, he went over to the minibar across the way. The fridge was of the dorm-sized variety, although made by some fancy, state-of-the-art manufacturer with a hyphenated name. Opening up the freezer, he took out one of the three bottles of Goose he kept on ice.

He stuck the cigarette between his front teeth as he cracked the top, and then he tossed the cap into the wastebasket, rabbit fingered his smoke, and drank right from the neck.

As he sat back down, he looked at the image he’d frozen. Once he’d started tapping on veins when it came to Al, he’d had to follow them all. Which was how he’d found this feed from the Old Laws room.

Which was also how he discovered the male had been turning off his location services. The night at the alley? When Al had stumbled onto those males? There had been no record of him being downtown. His ping had gone dark as soon as he’d left the Wheel.

V clicked on the next screen and looked at the pattern of times and durations Allhan had been going ghost: The night of those deaths. Last night, too.

About once a month, maybe twice.

Sure, the male was allowed to have his own life, but there were limits. And red fucking flags.

A lot of those.

Including why Allhan was right now sitting at his desk and accessing the CPD’s evidence database.

What the fuck was he doing now, true?

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I don’t know why you’re helping Allhan.”

As L.W. laid the oh-so-generous opinion out, Shuli glanced in the fighter’s direction. In the dim light, the heir to the throne was sitting at the far end of the dining room table, eating strawberry Pop-Tarts directly out of the box. Empty silver wrappers were scattered at his elbow, dead soldiers on the battlefield of his totally nutritious breakfast of champions.

Not that Rhamp was much better. He was drinking ranch dressing. Right out of the bottle.

“You want some lettuce with that,” Shuli muttered.

“Huh?” Rhamp glanced up from his phone. Then he sent a text and a little bing! sounded out. “What?”

“Never mind.”

“And of course Allhan couldn’t get that address.” L.W. opened a new sleeve. “You believed him? He should never be a go-to about anything more complicated than retrieving your lost password—”

“I’m absolutely going to help him.” Rhamp frowned. “Why wouldn’t I? Besides, what he asked for is not a heavy lift. And with what the bastard went through the other night? Have a little compassion.”

L.W. shrugged as he bit into one of the frosted corners. “Sorry, I’m missing that gene.”

“Yeah, they couldn’t fit it in with all the asshole on your double helix.”

“I feel so seen.” L.W. put a theatrical hand on his chest. “And so heard. Let’s hug it out, why don’t we, bitch.”

As Rhamp muttered and took another haul of Hidden Valley, Shuli got up from the table and walked over to a window, if only to give his goiter a break from all the creamy goodness. The shutters had risen for the night and the light that came in from back in the kitchen was low enough that he could see out of the security drapes onto the lawn. No footsteps disturbing the snow. No strange vehicles parked on the lane. No attempts to infiltrate the house during the day.

He walked into the foyer and over to the parlor. Checked another window. Didn’t see anything he hadn’t already noted.

They’d crashed down in the tunnel during the day, the need to survive and be smart about things overriding even L.W.’s usual arrogance and aggression. Except no slayers. Not last night. Not noontime, or three p.m. Not now after six.

None.

There were all kinds of arguments to be made that the slayers who had killed Shuli’s boys were marshaling resources, planning an attack—maybe using drones to scope out this property or any other owned by the aristocracy. But with every hour that went by, it was looking like the enemy wasn’t coming here or to anybody’s else’s house.

He glanced around at all the weapons they’d set up, especially Rhamp’s fave, the anti-tank gun he called Big Dick. There had been such a rush to get ready, while at the same time hiding what they were doing. But like the Brotherhood hadn’t been on the property anyway? He should have known when there wasn’t pushback about him and Rhamp staying put that the Brothers would set up their own safety net for them.

Hell, under that scenario, maybe the three of them were just bait.

Except no fish were even circling

The sound of footfalls coming across the marble floor behind him made him want to fire up Rhamp’s dick.

“Excuse me?” the guy said.

Shuli pivoted around. “Your gun. Not your actual dick.”

“Oh, good. I thought you’d really lost it instead of just sort of lost it.”

Through the archway into the dining room, L.W. was still at the head of the table with his stupid kiddie food First Meal—but the fighter had narrowed his pale green eyes on Shuli. With a curse, he got to his feet and came across, arriving at the threshold as he put the last corner of the fucking tart in his mouth.

His eyesight had returned sometime during the day, but Shuli had a feeling it wasn’t what it used to be. L.W. blinked more often and rubbed his face a lot, like he was trying to clear his vision.

There had been no more discussion about going to the Brotherhood’s clinic.

Shocker.

“They didn’t give this address up.” Shuli cleared a lump out of his throat. “The boys didn’t say where we lived.”

And after having memorized the photographs of the bodies, he knew what they’d been put through.

“They didn’t break,” he tacked on needlessly. Hoarsely.

There was a creak of leather as L.W. crossed his arms over his heavy chest. As the fighter opened his mouth, Shuli shook his head.

“Now would not be a great time to toss out one of your bon mots. Have a little respect for once in your life, okay? It would have been so easy for them to talk, not that it would have saved their lives, but maybe they would have been killed a little more humanely… I don’t know. Fuck.”

L.W. shut his mouth. Then nodded. “You’re right.”

Well, what do you know, hell could freeze over.

“They were so brave,” Rhamp murmured. “All of them.”

Moving around the room, Shuli looked at the abstract expressionist paintings he’d hung up, that Mondrian he’d saved from certain destruction last night, the de Kooning, his two Rothkos, and the other spotty, blotchy, color-blocked masterpieces that had been so fucking important when he’d bought them. God, the acts of rebellion right after he’d gotten his inheritance had been so privilege-coated: I’ll show you, Mommy and Daddy! I’ll take your money and not spend it on more Old Masters like you collected. I’m a rebel! Gottlieb for the win, huzzah!

“I can’t stay here anymore,” he announced.

He’d never been particularly connected to the house or the things in it, but now he just saw in every room the faces of the males who had died with such courage.

Shuli checked his phone for the millionth time. Still no reports of any attacks, anywhere. So they hadn’t just protected their immediate friends and families. They had protected… everyone.

“They bring honor upon their bloodlines,” L.W. said in the Old Language.

“They do.” Shuli nodded, and then did what he could to snap out of the grief and sorrow. “I have a safe house. Let’s pack all this up and move there.”

He braced for a fight with L.W. because… reasons. The fucker could argue with Lassiter Himself over the color of the night sky—

“Yeah,” the heir to the throne announced. “If slayers were going to show up here, they would have by now. I got some duffle bags in my room.”

As L.W. strode down the hallway to his suite, Shuli glanced at Rhamp, who just shrugged.

“Maybe he had a personality transplant sometime during the day.”

“We would have noticed that,” Shuli muttered dryly.

At least Willhis, his butler, was going to be excited to coordinate the move-in once they got to the safe house. The doggen was no doubt re-alphabetizing the spice racks as he cooled his jets out there. But there had been absolutely no question whatsoever that the loyal servant had had to relocate.

There had been too many people lost already.

God, he really wished these humans and their bright ideas would just get lost.

As iAm sat in a palace conference room that was built out to look like… well, a conference room, he had a stack of papers in front of him, a laptop at his elbow, and a tension headache that felt like a tumor. He’d been reading legal filings and documentation for the last four hours straight, and nothing he had learned gave him any peace of mind.

Then again, short of somehow blacking out from hypoxia, he didn’t think he was going to be finding anything calm, anytime soon.

“It’s not about a housing development,” he muttered to himself. “They want our land for more data farming.”

Sitting back in the office chair, he rubbed his temples and looked through the smoky glass of one of the windows. He could still smell the cologne and perfume of the men and women who had come here once again during the day, and had sat with him and t’On and a courtier who had half a brain and could keep her mouth shut.

Catra had wanted to attend in person, too, but everybody had vetoed that. The Queen was more important than all of them—so if there was a bomb planted in any of those briefcases?

At least she had watched on closed-circuit TV.

He idly glanced at the notes he’d made in the margins of the latest court order calling for eminent domain. Those rats without tails had thought they were making an offer that could not be refused.

Because they were prepared to take the land they were offering to buy.

“What a fucking mess.”

Excited voices drew his eyes away from his scribbles. Out in the hall, three courtiers floated by dressed in purple, and their excitement was pronounced, their hands flying around as they talked, their usual decorum shed like a second skin to reveal vital emotion. The buzz about an impending mating between the heir to the throne and the Queen’s Tretary had spread throughout the s’Hisbe, and holy hell, he wished they’d fucking tone it down.

Nothing like seeing happiness in the faces of others to shine a bright light on your inner torment. He was also tired of faking enthusiasm when he was approached with all kinds of congratulations.

And there was no walking-it-off, getting-some-air, either. Throughout the Territory, lanterns with purple shades had been hung outside every door to every abode. As well, purple streamers were being strung between the barren branches along the walkways even though no one was strolling on the grounds in this weather.

If it had been spring, they’d probably be spray-painting the grass purple.

The news had spread so fast, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. No doubt a couple of the courtiers had seen that t’On had switched his robing to purple with sterling silver embroidery. That had been enough—especially when no other female was tied to him, no other family celebrating, no gossip about the where and when of some other family’s young.

So it could only be Her Sublime Highness the Princess Dennesha.

And eventually, somebody with a lofty ranking at court would have had the temerity to ask t’On, and he would have confirmed his intended female. Because there was no reason to hide the other half of the intended’ness.

So the purple wildfire had spread—

As his phone started to ring, he slapped his hand over it and prayed to hell the call wasn’t the human female who had been leading the objection to the s’Hisbe’s religious sanctuary designation argument, and its tax-exempt-status paperwork.

Fucking hell, if those rats without tails weren’t trying to steal land, they were going after the Territory’s money. And God knew he was all out of any kind of customer-service voice at this point.

Still, the only way this got worse was if she showed up in person at this off-the-clock hour. With a curse, he flipped the cell over—

The image of his brother Trez’s puss filling the little screen for a FaceTime made his headache get worse. And damn it, he actually was tempted not to answer, except he never didn’t answer his twin’s calls. Besides, given how many migraines the other Shadow had enjoyed, it was almost like the pounder iAm had going on had sent out some kind of Neuro-Bat-Signal.

He put his phone up and accepted the connection.

His first thought was that Trez’s happiness positively radiated through the male’s handsome features. From the calm black eyes to the slight smile, from the health that shone in his cheeks and the easy way he breathed, it was hard to resent the guy’s choice to get out of Dodge and head west for a fresh start.

And then his brother’s brows pitched tents on his forehead. “Whoa, you look awful.”

iAm put a hand under his chin and played pose. “You say the sweetest things.”

“No, for real. Are you okay?”

Behind Trez, the ocean was pulling a deep-blue-sea, the moon hovering above rolling, gentle waves like it was considering jumping off a celestial diving board and going for a little splash around.

“Isn’t it cold for the beach?” iAm asked.

“It’s always seventy south of L.A.”

“I really don’t know why you’re out there.” He forced a smile. “Other than the weather, the food, the lack of lessers.”

And the lack of Shadows.

Then again, all of that could have been true here in Caldwell and the guy still would have left. Too many memories of Selena, and of the past with the s’Hisbe. Sure, restart locations rarely worked, but no one could argue that Trez and Therese weren’t thriving out on the West Coast.

And everyone was glad s’Ex, the executioner, was with them and keeping them safe. Not that Trez needed much help with that.

“I can guess why you’re calling,” iAm said ruefully. “Although, I thought you didn’t stay in touch with anyone but me back here.”

“Just because I lost people’s contacts doesn’t mean they lost mine.” His brother’s handsome face settled into a mock glare—that covered a spike of hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me my niece is getting mated?”

Okay, time to try out some excuses: Too busy? No, that was really bad. Emergency? No, that was even worse. Meteor landed in the middle of the Territory and he was on search and rescue?

Oh, that was a good one. Except the whistle-blowers would have already brought that up, right?

“I… don’t know what to say.”

Trez’s eyes flashed peridot aggression. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is she okay? Did someone hurt her—”

“It’s complicated.”

“Fuck you, iAm. That’s a Facebook status circa 2010. It’s not what you say to your brother. What the fuck is going on.”

Guess it was good that there was still a fighter lurking under the namaste surface. And he honestly had been thinking about calling the male.

The story came out in a halting series of stops and starts, and he almost felt like someone else’s narration was babbling from his own mouth: Celestial chart. Tretary. Mating to save…

“I’m coming back,” Trez announced.

“No, you’re not.” iAm burst out of the chair and went to the window. “Look, things feel… dangerous here.”

“So I’m going to—”

“Leave Therese out on the opposite coast? While you come here to be in the crosshairs of whatever destiny this is? You want to put her through that? Or great, how about you could lie to her? I know how easy that would go down.”

His brother glared into the phone, his eyes flashing pale green again. “You’re my family. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, Catra, or Denne.”

“I know, and I feel the same about you all. Now is not the time for a visit, though.”

Willing the lights in the conference room down, he stared off over the Territory. Clouds had drifted over the moon, so the houses of the courtiers and the huts of the civilians disappeared into the rolling winter landscape, only the purple lanterns glowing. Everywhere.

It had been… so long since there had been a royal ceremony.

Not since Denne had been born? Jesus. Had it been that long?

“You know, iAm, the celestial stuff should be taken with a grain of salt.”

As his brother let that one fly, how could you argue with him? Considering the male had been imprisoned and held for all the wrong reasons. Mistakes happened, oopsie.

“Well, it was right for me,” iAm said with defeat. “Maybe it’s right for Denne. She hasn’t been happy for a very long time, if ever. Love can grow…”

“You want to take that gamble? With your daughter?”

No. He really didn’t. What choice did they all have?

“I feel like I’m caught in some kind of nightmare,” he gritted.

And accordingly, what he was absolutely not going to do was tell his brother the other part of everything. About him and Catra.

“It’s never too late,” Trez said. “Maybe pump the brakes if you think there are doubts on her side. And if the s’Hisbe is in danger, from humans or anybody else, go to Wrath and the Brotherhood.”

“They have enough of their own problems, I’m sure.”

“If the King knew you were sitting on an issue and you didn’t talk to him? That’s not a follow-up I’d want to have. You could also reach out to Rehv.”

The King of the symphaths. Sure, that was a great idea. Like bringing a bonfire to light a cigarette.

iAm shook his head. “Just don’t tell s’Ex. There’s no reason for him to come back, either. We have plenty of the guards he trained. We’re stocked with ammo, too. We have resources.”

Trez’s lips pressed into a line. “I don’t like this.”

“At least now you know why I wasn’t in a big hurry to call you.”

“Yeah, because you were trying to figure out how to keep me in the dark without feeling like you were lying to me.”

He met his brother’s eyes and felt the physical distance between them as an ache in his heart. “How do you know me so well?”

“Brothers always know.” Abruptly, Trez cranked around and spoke over his shoulder. “It’s iAm, yeah. No, they’re not with him.”

Trez turned back to the screen. “Therese says she loves you. Where’s your better half?”

“Tell her right back at her from all of us. And Catra’s in the celestry observing the night sky.” Looking for a way around that goddamn chart. “Meanwhile, I’m here working on a legal issue. It’s fine.”

What a lie. He didn’t know whether anything was fine or not.

“Listen, I gotta go, brother mine,” he said roughly.

“Okay.” Those brows went low over those black eyes again. “Yeah. Sure.”

“I love you. And I need you to stay put.”

“Wait—when’s the mating?”

iAm stared out over the landscape of glowing purple lights once again. Then he looked even farther to the horizon, to what he could not see, but could sense—and not in a vampire way. The hum from the data centers carried through not just the air, but the earth itself, so constant that he didn’t even notice the vibration anymore, really.

Between one blink and the next, he imagined the land inside the boundary wall stripped clean of everything, nothing but warehouse buildings flattening the gentle roll, more technology eating up traditions that had existed for centuries.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied. “But I will call and let you know, I promise.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Vishous hated to do it. He really did.

But he switched on the restricted ping inside Allhan’s phone. This was the one that law enforcement could use to locate anybody and everybody, a mandatory requirement for all cellular units sold in the U.S. as of about ten years ago under Courtney’s Law, a federal statute. Of course, the humans with the badges who wanted to utilize it had to get court orders, and even with that legal gatekeeping, privacy concerns were still litigated from time to time.

Fortunately, that was not his fucking problem.

As V located the address, and re-formed on the roof of a municipal building downtown in the avenues, he wanted a hand-rolled, except he kept that shit on lockdown while he walked to the edge and looked over the drop-off. The facility was almost half the size of a football field, and the brightly lit parking lot below was necklaced with chain-link and barbed wire. Cars and trucks in various crash conditions were lined up like patients waiting for the OR, but not because they were going to be fixed. Not here at any rate.

This was the Caldwell Police Department’s impound, so everything here was evidence in some crime.

Down on the ground, Allhan was inside the gate, stomping his feet and blowing into his cupped hands. He was in a different sweatshirt tonight, a black one, not the gray, and blue jeans. It was still a readjustment to get used to the size of him, but V wasn’t measuring him for new fucking clothes.

What the hell was he doing—

A door opened, and a man in overalls came out with an iPad. “We don’t usually do this after hours. You must be someone important.”

“Not really.”

“Sign here.” He put the lit screen forward. “And I’ll bring her out.”

“Thanks.” Allhan scribbled something. “I really appreciate it.”

All he got was a grunt back and then the man disappeared out of view. As a door clapped shut, Allhan looked around, twisting his torso and grimacing like his back hurt, and it was fucked up. As V stared down, he didn’t recognize anything about the male in a way that had nothing to do with his post-transition maturity.

There was no way not to wonder what the hell had been welcomed into the residence at the Wheel, into FT. The story Allhan had supplied at Safe Place had been blinded in a lot of ways—the parental, names and the bloodline particularly—but that wasn’t that unusual. Young who were homeless and without resources were still allowed to have pride and want to protect their families.

Even if they’d been left high and dry in the big, bad world.

And Christ, the fucker had been so damned timid. Al had always given off the vibes of a frightened forest animal, all stutters and lowered eyes, looking like he was going to bolt at any moment—

A low rumble vibrated through V’s shitkickers and he glanced at the snow he was standing on. Moments later, the clinking, metal-on-metal rise of a garage door rippled upward, and then there was a hot breath of gas and oil. That wasn’t what he tracked. The engine was big, loud, and nasty, and every car-guy neuron in his brain exploded with gimme, gimme, gimme.

He even leaned forward a little farther than he should have.

What rolled out was a straight-up thing of beauty, and he didn’t even like trucks. Fully murdered, a dually, and naturally aspirated, which had to be special order, the Ford F-whatever-the-fuck was badass and then some.

“Don’t know how this is getting released,” the human said as he got out from behind the wheel. “I thought this was part of that helicopter ch—”

The guy grunted and put his hand up to his head like it hurt.

Al went around to the driver’s side. “Thanks for your help.”

“Whatever.”

As the human disappeared back into the building, Al peered into the truck like something in the cockpit was going to sting him on the eyeball. It was a good full minute before he pulled himself into the cab and shut the door. And then there was another long pause, as if he was maybe looking up “how to drive” on his phone.

Either one of his phones.

Finally, the red taillights flared, there was a change in engine cadence, and the—

Talk about going at an idle. The truck rip-roared at two inches an hour while approaching the gate, which retracted on its own. After that, there was more granny driving out to the street and then a turn signal like Al was breaking into a traffic jam even though there were no other vehicles around. Once on the road proper, he puttered off to the left and stayed to the center as if the parallel parked cars were sporting box cutters.

V dematerialized to the roof of a storage unit place. Then a parking garage. Next up was a series of data processing buildings, at least going by the humming.

It was not hard to follow the truck. Hell, if he’d been on the ground, he could have gone at a stroll’s pace.

Also good job this wasn’t at a busier time of night. The male would have had a streamer of pissed-off drivers behind him, and maybe a cop-bot or two pulling him over to make sure he wasn’t under the influence: He pumped the brakes at every intersection, whether or not there was a stop sign, even if there was a green light.

Finally, the creeping speed increased to a whopping fifteen miles an hour. In a thirty.

And he just kept going.

It was a triathlon at a turtle pace, all the way out of downtown to the ring of strip-mall suburbia that had rebounded when people decided they’d had enough of online buying and wanted to play touchy-feely again with things like clothes, books, and home goods.

But confidence was gaining by the mile.

Now Al was cruising at a blistering twenty-five miles an hour on the four-laner that had stoplights, turning lanes to cut across opposing traffic, and cars that wanted to actually make it to wherever they were going before the close of this century. And every time he was passed, he topped the brakes like he’d panicked and then took a while to get back up to speed.

Eventually, he eased off Route 9 into the Latham Plaza.

A weird tightening squeezed the back of V’s neck as he recognized the place. God, he hadn’t been here in over thirty years.

Mr. X’s martial arts studio had been here. The Fore-lesser who had abducted Beth all those years ago, when she’d first come into the vampire world, first learned who and what she really was.

That bastard. If you could dig a slayer up and kill it all over again, that one would be high on the list.

There were all kinds of tall lights shining down on empty parking spaces and snowbanks, and V stayed with the rooftop hops as the murdered truck proceeded all the way to the back corner and around behind the horseshoe-shaped building.

Al rolled to a stop at a freestanding, warehouse-sized box that declared itself “Mac’s Detailing and Body Shop. Est. 1987.”

A guy immediately came out.

“Hey!” Unlike the last human, this one was smiling, and instead of some muni-uniform, he had on overalls, and was covered with tattoos. “Nice ride.”

Al got out. “Thank you so much for this.”

“No problem, I gotchu. Rhamp’s been a customer of mine for years and years. Brings his bikes here.”

“You know what to do?”

“Yup. You can come back in—” The man checked his watch. “Let’s see, three hours?”

“That’ll be perfect.” Al hesitated and then opened the driver’s-side door a little wider. “Um, things are a little… messy inside.”

“No worries. I’ve dealt with it before.”

“I’m not sure you have.”

Two tattooed hands were put up. “Listen, I don’t ask questions about things that are not my business.” The man leaned in and lowered his voice. “And I have chemicals that can get blood out of anything. Don’t worry.”

Al sagged with relief. “Thank you so much. This means a lot to me.”

“See you in three.”

The pair shook hands, and then Al dematerialized into thin air right in front of the guy. As the man just went back inside like nothing unusual had happened, it was clear that he was either a half-breed who could go out in the daytime or he’d somehow been working with members of the species for a while now.

As one of the bays started to open, V didn’t care about all of that.

He wanted to know what the fuck was going on. Especially as the wind switched directions.

The scent of human blood was so loud in V’s nose, he almost sneezed from the shit.

What the hell had Al gotten himself into?

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

As Denne closed up Sal’s for the night and stepped out into the empty parking lot, she rechecked her phone. But like the text might have changed? In reality, she knew she was just trying to give herself a chance to rethink the plans she’d made with Al. Talking in the dark to him was one thing. Meeting up in person? Whole different ball game.

Ah, hell, maybe what she didn’t like about the situation was less seeing him again and more how much she was looking forward to it.

He’d been a preoccupation all night long. The sounds he’d made as he came. The heavy breathing in her ear through the phone. What her own body had done.

And if she saw him, she sure as hell wasn’t going to only hold hands with him.

Whatever, she needed to quit the headspin and go. And as she walked around to her usual spot to dematerialize from, she told herself this was just until the mating. That was it. She was going to stop cold turkey as soon as she went through the ceremony with t’On.

Like Al was the vampire equivalent of smoking.

Or heroin.

Now, there was a compliment every male wanted to hear.

When she was in the shadows, she closed her eyes, but it was a good minute and a half before she could ghost over to the address he’d given her. And although she was confused why he wanted her to go out there, she wasn’t unfamiliar with the area: Her disappointment when he’d suggested Latham Plaza as the place to meet up had offered insight into exactly how far from reality her romantic fantasies had taken her.

What did she expect, though? A nice dinner at almost eleven p.m.? He was on vampire time even if she wasn’t.

“At least a snack at a diner, maybe,” she murmured as she re-formed where she knew it would be dark. “Or maybe his apartment.”

Actually, no, that was a bad idea because she didn’t know if he had roommates. Or again, what if he had a female? The one in the glass house might have been his sister, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else—and Denne wanted him, but she was not interested in fucking up some other female’s or woman’s situation.

So that was a question she did need to ask before this went any further.

Walking out of the darkness thrown by a walkway between stores, Denne glanced around the empty lot, and saw nothing but snowbanks and lampposts breaking up the football field’s worth of space.

“Where you at, Al.”

She snagged her phone and texted him. Then checked out the storefronts: Restaurants, a tattoo parlor, little shops that sold clothes and shoes and household stuff. For a brief moment, she imagined coming here with him some Sunday afternoon, the pair of them wandering along the sidewalk with the human couples, imagining their mated future with excitement because they were about to move into their first house.

It would be in the spring, by the way. And she and Al would both be able to be out in the sunshine, even though now that he was through his transition that was a no-go for him.

Shadows had no problem with the daylight, but his kind couldn’t handle it.

Not without twelfth-degree burns.

But see, this was why fantasies were the best. You could pull any whim out of your ass and make it reality—

A growling noise off in the distance got her attention, and she pivoted to it. Whatever it was… was loud and deep, and out of habit, she put her hand inside her parka, and slid her fingers around the butt of her revolver.

Tilting her head like a German shepherd, she frowned. Something about the sound registered in her mind, and she was trying to tease whatever it was out when a set of headlights rounded the far corner of the mall.

Jesus, that engine was just like her own.

Like… exactly as her truck had sounded.

An electric awareness set in, and even though there was a possibility it wasn’t Al having done the kind of solid that defied belief, she stayed where she was and tried to calm down.

The approach of the vehicle seemed like it took forever, and that was not a perception thing. The truck was coming at her at just over an idle, and honestly, the slow speed gave her time to look it over. Same year, make, and model. Same dark tinted glass. Same black rims. But the body color was a gorgeous matte silver.

Finally, it stopped just in front of her.

That huge engine was put into park and left on. And then the driver’s-side door opened, and a whiff of cleaner rode the cold breeze to her nose.

As Al got out, he was looking kind of sheepish. “Hi.”

“Is that my…”

He glanced at the Ford as if inspecting it for the first time. “Yes, it is. The VIN has been swapped out, and he has new insurance and registration—and we had to wrap it. I know you liked the black, but it’s probably for the best that you lie low. This silver matte will last for up to five years if you hand-wash it? By summer, though, I think you could have it removed, if you really want to.”

Al put his hand in the pocket of his black hoodie and held out a card. “You can call them to do it. I’ve already paid for the take-off. Mac will get you in whenever you want. He’s the owner.”

Denne’s eyes went blurry, and the next thing she knew, she was running her hand over the warm hood, across the front grille, down the far side. As she came around the back, all she could do was shake her head.

“How did you…”

When she was standing with him again, he shrugged. “I told you, I can get into any computer system. I poked around the CPD evidence registry, found where it was, changed the paperwork internally to authorize the release, and made the overnight guy give it to me.” He pointed to the corner he’d come around. “Mac’s place is back there. I got his name from Rhamp. He’s really nice for a human, and knows… about us. How that all worked out, I don’t know, but Rhamp definitely trusts him—”

Denne tackled him with her whole body, giving him a hard squeeze before she lifted up onto her tiptoes, and put her lips on his. And she meant the kiss to just be a thank-you, an expression of all the gratitude she was feeling, a brief contact that lasted only long enough for him to understand exactly how much she appreciated this thoughtful, generous gesture.

Not what happened.

Or, at least, not what happened next.

His mouth was as soft as she remembered, and his body was as hard, the muscles of his chest as she leaned into them unyielding in the best possible way. And as his arms came around her and brought her in close, nothing was cold. Anywhere.

Not in Caldwell. Not in Alaska.

Not in the depths of outer space.

Overcome with so much, Denne backed up against the side of the truck and took him with her, running her hands onto his pecs and around his neck. There was such a soaring freedom to the release of the lust in her blood, a sense of flying even as she stayed on the ground—and she wanted more of this. More of him.

After so long—and not long enough—she lowered herself back down, breaking the melding of their mouths.

God, she liked the way he was staring at her. No more fresh-out-of-the-transition awkwardness. He was a fully mature male looking to mate, and she needed that from him. Wanted it. And the sense that the walls of destiny were closing in on her and that her fate was being sealed made her want to act fast.

Touching the side of his face, she trailed her fingertips to his top lip. “Let me see your fangs.”

He curled things up and revealed his descended canines. But then he shook his head. “I won’t bite you, Denne. And I promise I will never, ever hurt you.”

Except what if that was what she asked for. The biting, that was.

As she let her arm fall to her side, she glanced at her beloved truck. “How’d you like to go for a ride?”

The smile he gave her was slow and sexy. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Holy fuck. Allhan had a girlfriend.

A real, live, honest-to-God female.

And Vishous knew who it was. Denne, a.k.a. Her Sublime Highness the Princess Dennesha. iAm’s daughter.

From the rooftop over the Hot Ink Tattoo & Piercing Shoppe, he watched as the pair of them drove off in a silver Ford truck with a badass engine and blacked-out windows—that had been black when he’d first seen it three and a half hours ago. In the wake of their departure, he just stared at the empty, brightly lit parking lot like he’d never seen one before.

After a moment, he let out a really loud laugh. A girlfriend.

And not just any female, but the heir to the throne of the Shadows, daughter of a great male and a truly great ruler of worth.

Immediately, questions bubbled all over the place, but the only thing he could really focus on was taking out his phone and hitting send on the first number that popped up in his favorites.

His shellan answered on the second ring. “You okay? What’s wrong—”

“He’s dating someone. It’s just that he’s dating, and wants to keep it private. Fucking hell, I’m so relieved—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Al, he’s dating”—or at least hooking up with?—“Dennesha.”

There was a heartbeat of WTF. Then, in a muffled voice, his mate said, “Hey, Manny, will you handle things for a sec. I gotta take this.”

After the guy made some kind of an affirmative reply, there was a little shuffling.

Two seconds later, Jane was back. “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to give me some background on whatever this is? He has a girlfriend?”

V wedged his phone with his shoulder as he took out a hand-rolled. And while he lit up, he gave only part of the backstory, just the whole location services thing. The rest of his paranoia and cyber stalking made him sound too frickin’ crazy.

“I was so worried about him.” V exhaled and watched the smoke billow into the cold night. Fuck, he felt drunk. “Like, you know how he’s really quiet, and he’s probably totally embarrassed. But he couldn’t have picked a better female.”

“So you talked with him, and they’re dating?”

“Oh, fuck no. I’m not crashing his vibe. Frankly, it’s kind of a miracle he has a female.”

Jane laughed. “Well… good for him. I wonder when he’ll tell us. If he will.”

“I don’t know. But as long as he’s happy that’s all that counts. Especially after the other night.”

There was a pause. “I hope he’s really opening up, and telling her his feelings.”

“Well, they ain’t just talking, true?” V glanced out at the parking lot again and stroked his goatee with his gloved hand. “I had to look away to give them some privacy, if you feel me. So I believe he’s got a lot of things on his mind, at least right now.”

Matter of fact, he’d had to look away, for, like… minutes. Minutes.

Frankly, he was proud of his boy. Denne was beautiful, smart, from that fantastic family. The throne shit was the only red flag, and not because it was the s’Hisbe. If V had learned one thing after all these years as one of Wrath’s right-hand males, it was that heavy is the head that wears any crown.

No fucking thank you.

Any throne was bad news.

“Well, I’m really glad you called.”

V smiled slowly, a joy he’d never felt before inflating him from the inside. “When’s your break at the clinic?”

“Oh, anytime. Manny and I are just doing inventory.” There was another pause. “Wait, you’re coming here tonight? Really?”

With a frown, he tried to remember the last time he’d gone and seen his shellan at work. Taken her down to one of the classrooms.

Gotten her out of her scrubs for a little while.

“I’m coming right now,” he growled. “Get ready for me.”

Jane’s laugh was low and knowing. “Say please first. And I’ll think about it.”

As his sex hardened behind the button fly of his leathers, Vishous hissed and bared his fangs. Fuck, he loved her. He totally fucking loved her.

“Please,” he drawled.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” his shellan said. “And you can spank me if you get here in the next five minutes—”

V dematerialized out of the Latham Plaza parking lot so fast, he didn’t even hear the last word she spoke.

True.

CHAPTER FORTY

I really can’t believe you got my truck back.”

As Denne let out a little awkward laugh, Allhan allowed his head to loll in the direction of the driver’s seat. Man, he liked the way her hands looked on that thick wheel. If he did nothing else tonight, he could watch her tighten and release her grips as she made lefts and rights and be a happy male.

“I mean, just so we’re clear,” she continued, “this is the most game shit you could possibly game.”

“Really?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” She glanced over again and then refocused on the road. “Are you even kidding me? Screw flowers. You got me… well, my truck back. But not only that, you’ve made it so I can drive it and don’t have to worry about being dive-bombed by a helicopter.”

“I’m glad this pleased you.”

There was a pause and her eyebrows dropped down. “It truly did—does, whatever. In fact, this is one of the nicest things anybody’s ever done for me.”

In a hungry way, that he did what he could to hide, his stare traveled to her slender neck. “You deserve to have all the nice things.”

Hell, at this point, he would give her the world if he could find enough gift wrap.

“We aren’t far from where we’re going.” She looked over again. “I promise.”

“You could drive around in circles all night if you want. I don’t mind.”

“Nowhere pressing to go?”

In the glow from the dashboard, her face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Whether it was those braids that were so precisely done, or the waves of black curls that fell over her shoulders… the curve of her lips or arch of her brows… or the way her eyes traveled back and forth between him and the road… he couldn’t get enough of staring at her.

And every time their eyes met, it was like an electric bolt went through his body.

“Try nowhere I’d rather be,” he whispered.

As they came up to a red light, she hit the brakes and shook her head. “Now, why you gotta say things like that.”

He glanced out his own window so he didn’t seem like the lovesick sap he actually was. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Oh, you do.” Her voice lightened some. “Or maybe you just have good instincts when it comes to me.”

“If that’s the case, I’m okay with it.”

They fell into a silence that was easier than it should have been considering they were all but strangers, and the only thing he was thinking of was how long until he could kiss her again. And what do you know, he went back to looking at her.

“Denne.”

“Yeah?” When he didn’t immediately respond, those black eyes returned to him. “What.”

“Thank you for the best night of my life.” As he felt his cheeks flush, he was the one to break the contact. “It’s been… wonderful.”

The chuckle that came back at him went right into his bloodstream. “We haven’t done anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just being around you is enough for me.”

He had no conception of where they were going as they left the city, but he had the sense they were heading north toward the mountains. In any other circumstances, he would have liked watching the winter landscape pass by, but he had a much better view to enjoy, didn’t he. And when the first of the hills arrived and they headed up a steady ascent, he played magical thinking and imagined the Ford truck taking to the air and flying over the Adirondacks, all Santa’s sleigh.

Just with vampires. And no Christmas presents.

A rustic-looking sign announcing they’d entered the Sugarloaf Mountain State Park flared at the side of the road, and shortly after that, they started up a two-lane rise that zigzagged back and forth. No other cars. No houses or ambient lights. Nothing but pine trees and snow.

The crest came without preamble, just a turn and there it was. The top.

Denne piloted them over to a parking area that had been plowed, the truck’s headlights washing over another sign that read “Sugarloaf Scenic Lookout.” When they were in place against the guardrail, she turned off all their lights along with the engine.

And that was when the sky came alive.

Allhan sat forward into the windshield. “Look at all the stars.”

The velvet darkness with its swaths of galaxies brought the infinite right down to earth and into the cab of the Ford.

“It’s… overwhelming,” he said. “In a good way.”

Denne tilted into the steering wheel. When she stayed silent, he had to press. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, even though she seemed lost in her own thoughts. “I just wanted you to see this view. Plus privacy for the win, right?”

Before he could think better of it, he reached for her hand. “I’ll help you with anything I can. Just let me know what I can do.”

“It’s too complicated to go into.”

“Try me.”

“Well, for one thing… you have any experience with eminent domain?” she said dryly.

He popped his brows. “You mean about land being taken by the government? I can learn whatever I have to. Is your family having a problem?”

“Why are you so good to me.” She cleared her throat as she focused on their intertwined fingers. “Are you always like this?”

“No.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You don’t really know me.” As soon as he said the words, he wanted to take them back. “What I mean is—”

“And you don’t know me. We’re strangers, and sometimes that’s easier.” Abruptly, she looked him right in the eye. “Are you with anybody, Al? Girlfriend, mate. Mate-to-be?”

“No.” He had to laugh. “You look so surprised.”

“I guess I am.” She waited. “You’re not asking me that back?”

He shook his head. “I don’t care if you’re with someone. You’re here with me now and I’ll take whatever I’m given. If that makes me look desperate? Fine. I have nothing to hide when it comes to that. Tonight I feel like I won the lottery, got a liver transplant, and wasn’t struck by lightning all at the same time.”

Denne had to laugh again. “Wow, Al. Quite a winning streak there, huh.”

“Sorry, is that not very romantic?”

“Better than throwing a pass next to a crime scene.” When he winced, she squeezed his arm. “I’m just kidding with you. And I mean, it’s a weird way of putting how you feel, but I like weird.”

The smile he sent her way was tentative. “So here we are, strangers. In the best truck on the planet.”

“You have excellent taste in vehicles, have I mentioned that?” Denne laughed some more. “And we’re in front of the best view. But how ’bout we not spend any more time looking at it.”

They faced each other.

“Strangers really isn’t bad,” she whispered. “Not for me.”

“I agree.”

“You do?” When he nodded, she exhaled as if she were relieved. “It makes this…”

“The only thing we need to think about.” He squeezed her hand. “When we’re here, together, this is all we have—and it’s all I need right now.”

Her eyes drifted down to his lips. “Me, too.”

Bless him, Al didn’t need more of an invitation. But he was clearly going to put things on Denne’s terms, and she appreciated it: Leaning into the console, he stretched over and touched her chin.

“I’m going to kiss you now. Unless you want to just enjoy the night sky instead?”

“Fuck no,” she said. “I’m sick of stars. I don’t want to look at them ever again.”

As Al surged forward, he could barely wedge his broad shoulders across the build-out between the seats and wasn’t that fantastic—and the instant their mouths melded, Denne knew that she was going to drag him into the backseat and turn his lap into the best fucking saddle on the planet.

Except there was no rush. And no need to crank the engine back on and add a little heat to the cab. Nope, they were their own thermal unit.

God, his hair was so smooth and silky in between her fingers as she drew him in even tighter, and as his hand moved up and down her back, she released her seatbelt and shrugged out of her parka. To cut short any confusion about where she wanted to take this, she angled his palm right where she wanted it—

She gasped as he cupped her breast.

And on his side, there was no fumbling. Al just pushed forward even more as he explored the swell that—

Chunk.

Chunk.Chunk.Chunk—

“Motherfucker,” he muttered as he twisted around like he was going to yank his seatbelt out of the truck’s main frame.

While he jabbed at the release as if it were trying to come up and bite him, she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. And then the second the belt snapped out of the way, he was back on her. Talk about fast learner once again. He might not have done this before, but the overwhelming mating urge clearly turned him into a Casanova. Straining to get on her, his mouth grinding against hers, he was all in and then some as his palm found her breast again and—

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonk—

They both jumped back.

As he ripped his elbow away from the steering wheel, he flashed his fangs and hissed at the thing. And now she really did laugh. Taking his face in her hands, she turned his head to her and kissed him. Kissed him again. Licked her way into him.

When she eased off a little, her eyes flashed and bathed him in a pale green glow. “How about we take this into the backseat?”

Al nodded like she was offering him the map to the promised land, and that was when the cramming started. Somehow he thought he could squeeze his six-foot-five, broad-chested, heavy-shouldered body between the seats. She opened her mouth to point out there was a more conventional way of changing proverbial chairs, but he was clearly having none of the get-out-and-walk-around thing. Groaning, straining, he forced himself headfirst, and then shit got bad. His torso went down, his ass went up, and he became totally stuck.

“Oh, my God,” Denne said through her laughter. “Are you okay?”

“Well…” He cleared his throat and flopped his one free arm around. “I’ve been in better situations.”

With a muffled grunt, he tried to go back. With a strangled curse, he tried to push himself forward.

“Pivot.” She coughed. “Pivot, pivot—”

“This is not a Friends episode.”

“You’re a fan, too? I didn’t think anybody watched the old school stuff anymore.”

“Memes—” Grunt. Curse word. More grunt. “Only from memes.”

But he gave it a good shot, rolling to the side, one of his Converse All Stars bracing at the juncture between the windshield and the dash. And what do you know, that change in position… changed everything.

She was face to face with the front of his hips.

And there was nothing like getting an eyeful of everything she had suspected he had in those jeans.

The outline of his arousal could have given a tree trunk a run for the money.

Okay, that was hyperbole.

But not by much.

Denne just had to reach out and touch—and the instant she brushed her hand against that rigid length pushing at the denim, that big male body straightened every single joint it had. As a dull thump and an Ow! rippled forward from the back, she had a feeling his head had knocked into the door.

“Oh, shit, sorry—”

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Oh, fuck—”

No reason not to follow instructions, right?

With a blissful feeling of control, she moved her hand up and down, exploring his shaft, the blunt head, what was below the arousal. In response, his hips jerked toward her, then started rolling like he would when he was inside of her.

“You like what I’m doing to you?”

“Yes, Jesus, yes.”

“Good.” She smiled as she cupped his sack and he moaned again. “So I’m not hurting you?”

“No! Don’t stop yet—”

Popping her brows, she paused her explorations and tried to see into the rear. There was no way of looking past all the muscle in the way.

“Can you even breathe?” she asked with a grin.

“Who the fuck cares,” he countered hoarsely. “Just don’t stop!”

As if to prove how serious he was, he arched his spine to push his erection into her palm, even as something let out a squeak that sounded like metal fatigue in the seatback. Hell, maybe it was the engine mount, with the way he was straining. And then he started pumping against her hand and there was only one thing she could do. She released that top copper button and unzipped the—

His arousal exploded out like it was gunning for her mouth, and there was no question what to do next.

Denne parted her lips and took him in. All the way to the base.

The roar Allhan let out shook the truck. Or maybe that trembling was because his body was seizing.

“Please,” he begged. “Please… Denne, oh God…”

Wasn’t that the nicest sound. Better even than the engine on this frickin’ Ford.

Retracting herself, she popped him out of her mouth, and then licked him like the ice cream he was, savoring his taste. Another deep-throat. Annnnd out. Down to his base again. Meanwhile, Al was panting like he was running at a full tilt.

And he also didn’t seem to be worried that he was having the head rush to beat all head rushes, no doubt.

A rhythm was easily found, easily followed, and the pleasure she was giving him rebounded into herself. His sawing breaths, the way that foot kicked against her windshield, how his hand grabbed on to the headrest with the veins straining down to his fingertips. All of it was so raw and hungry, so desperate and impatient, that his pleasure wiped out everything that was going on in her own mind.

And that was a gift, it really was.

“You gotta stop—”

“Why?” she said against the slick tip of his erection. “You’re not into this?”

“I’m gonna come—”

“And I’m going to swallow.”

The second those words registered, he locked against her face and started to orgasm. And just like she promised, she milked him, suckling every ounce he gave her, and she loved it. The whole fucking thing. Especially the taste of him.

As well as the scent of dark spices that suddenly filled the truck.

Even though she knew what it meant.

And him bonding to her was the worst complication they could both have.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Well, wasn’t this fucking cozy.

Paul Bunyan meets Architectural Digest.

As L.W. limped into the living room of Shuli’s rustic safe house, he wondered how many properties the aristocrat owned. At least all the splotchy paintings had disappeared. Then again, it was hard to hang things on logs.

Naturally, the “cabin” wasn’t a shitty hunter’s reject from a hundred years ago. It was easily ten thousand square feet in size, had thermopaned windows with daylight shades, and a full HVAC system. Decorated with a professional eye—he assumed some glymera-approved designer had done the magic—the place was filled with all kinds of Adirondack crap: Furniture made out of logs and sticks, rugs that were braided and in deep reds, blues, and greens, landscapes in old gilded frames. The floors were huge planed boards, and the staircases up and down had steps made of the same. Overhead, thick beams that had been hand-cut some eon ago were the kind of thing you’d have to burn down to get to buckle.

“Where’d you find this place,” Rhamp asked as he brought in the last of the duffles from the Range Rover. “Logs’R’Us?”

Because of the amount of munitions and ammunitions they had to transport, they’d driven over in one of Shuli’s fleet of cars, and L.W. had been cool with being in the back. He’d spent the half hour or so staring out the window.

And creating from the blurriness what the side of the road looked like: The wintry blankets of snow. The skeletal trees. The occasional human house.

His eyes were only giving him outlines and color blocks, flashes of texture, and hints of details. The lack of acuity made him panic if he thought too much about it, a strange sense of being trapped when he wasn’t restrained at all choking him. To combat the anxiety, he’d distracted himself by using his mind to fill in the blanks.

He was doing that mental coloring book shit now.

As he went from room to room and then found a hall to another wing of the place, he wanted to blame his bad vision on that flash. Like if he’d only avoided whatever the hell it was, then everything would have stayed nice and goddamn normal.

That was a fucking lie, though. He’d been inching toward this destination and fighting it like hell for a while now. And the blindness was only part of the sense that some kind of countdown was happening, that some kind of inevitable tick-tock of fate was stalking him.

“—and then we can head out into the field.”

“Yeah, I’m down.”

Rhamp and Shuli were talking by the front door, their muffled voices so familiar, they’d become a kind of family he wasn’t interested in having.

He didn’t even want the family he had.

On that note, if he could get away from this navel-gazing bullshit, that’d be great.

“This crib is mine,” he called over his shoulder.

“Whatever you want,” Shuli returned from the distance.

L.W. went over and sat on the bed. There was a red and black wool blanket spread across the foot of the thick mattress, and as he put his palm on it, he felt the scratchy softness. Then he looked over to the lamp on the little table by all the pillows, and he realized he hadn’t turned it on. He wasn’t going to. His eyes weren’t keener in the dark. They were just getting more and more sensitive to light.

Footsteps came down the hall, and going by the Gucci cologne, he knew who it was, and you know, when you were a houseguest, it was considered in bad taste to tell your host to go fuck themselves. Especially when they hadn’t done a damn thing wrong.

“I’m coming,” he said as Shuli appeared in the jambs, a dark shape backlit by the hall light.

“Just checking,” the fighter said. “But if you want to chill here, that’s cool.”

“No.” He frowned at the wall of logs and mortar next to him. “This is a nice place, by the way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that other house of yours was a total dump.” As Shuli let a crack of laughter fly, L.W. found himself smiling a little. “Too bright, and the art was awful.”

“I thought you liked the Rothkos.”

“I knew what they were. That’s different.”

“Ah—”

“We got company, boys.”

Down at the other end of the place, Rhamp’s voice rippled out, and L.W.’s nose turned his head. The instant he took a deep breath, it was like every cell in his body came alive.

“What the fuck is Bitty doing here?” he demanded as he punched to his feet. “Did you invite her?”

“I just told her where we’d moved to.”

“Can’t you keep your mouth shut about anything?”

“Are you kidding me right now?” His host muttered a curse. “Then again, considering what we’re doing on a nightly basis in the field, that’s a rhetorical I shouldn’t dignify with an answer.”

“I don’t understand why anybody needs to know anything.”

“And I’m not asking you for your opinion.” Shuli pivoted on his shitkicker. “If you don’t want to see her, stay here and sulk.”

“I’m not sulking,” L.W. shot back.

“Fine, linger in your brooding darkness. How ’bout that.”

Left to his own morose devices, L.W. glared at the floorboards. And listened to the pattern of talk redouble as Bitty greeted Mr. News Flash.

Planting his hands on his hips, he closed his useless eyes. Rhage’s adopted daughter was his fucking Kryptonite, but more than that, she couldn’t stand him and for very good reason. So yes, he was going to stay the fuck here.

“And I’m not fucking brooding.”

Fuck.

Following a very, very nice break with his shellan at the training center, V dematerialized south and east and re-formed in the Audience House’s plowed driveway. With a whistle under his breath and a spring in his goddamn shitkickers, he swung through the security checks at the back, and as he stepped out into the kitchen, Rhage twisted around like he’d been caught stealing. Then again, the brother had a cherry Danish in his mouth, and one in each hand.

Hollywood put his arms to the ceiling like it was a stickup. “DontcomeformeImstarving—”

“What a great night.” V walked over and hugged the big, blond asshole. “Good to see ya. Lookin’ fine there, my brother.”

As the pastry chefs came back in with empty trays from the waiting room, V put his palms up to the doggen for high-fiving. When they didn’t respond out of shock and confusion, he went across and lifted their hands for a sturdy slap.

“How we doing? Great night, huh.” V snagged the Danish out of Rhage’s piehole and took a bite of it. “Fan-fucking-tastic. You guys are the best.”

As the chefs looked at the other brother with bug eyes, Rhage murmured, “I don’t know. I think that concussion messed him up maybe?”

V shoved the pastry in his piehole—sorry, Danish-hole—and nodded at the exit. “Come on, we be late, bitch. Can’t keep the King waiting.”

He was chewing and then whistling as he entered the core, and when he ran into Butch, he gave the cop a big smacker on the cheek. “Let’s go get it.”

The Dhestroyer did a double take. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Like what?”

“As if you won Powerball.” Still, his best friend threw an arm over his shoulders. “What’s doin’.”

Oh, nothing. Just the son that he shouldn’t have wasn’t involved in shady shit, but was dating a beautiful female. Simple as that.

“High on life, cop.” He opened the way into the Audience Room. “Nothing all that mysterious.”

As they entered, Wrath was in his armchair with George, his golden, in his lap. On a little folding table next to them, a flattened McDonald’s bag was being used as a plate for two plain hamburgers. The dog was taking gentle bites from a third burger held by his master, and the soft encouragement that the King was offering was nothing you’d hear coming out of that stern mouth under any other circumstance.

“So what we got going on tonight, huh?” V sauntered over and shook Tohr’s hand. “We good? What’s up, hey, Phury, my man. Z? ’Sup.”

He worked his way around the room, and when he got back to Tohr, the King’s second-in-command cleared his throat.

“Look, no offense, but who died and made you a politician?”

“Ha-ha, good one.” He clapped the brother on the shoulder. “You’re a funny guy, true? What a good night this is, don’t ya think?”

“It’s so cold my nuts frosted over as I walked from the car to the door,” Butch offered. “But no one’s woken up dead, so, yeah, it’s better than most.”

“Amen, brother.” V repositioned his Sox hat and lit up a hand-rolled. “But for reals, what we got on the docket. I’m ready for some fun.”

As he exhaled and looked up, everybody was staring at him. Even Wrath. And no doubt George would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for the next hamburger.

“I think we’ve entered a parallel dimension,” someone said.

“Fuck, this means Lassiter has stopped watching TV and taken up fucking with us.”

Vishous laughed. “Damn, you guys are killin’ it tonight. Killin’ it.”

It was hard to describe the feeling he had, and he guessed it was what he’d overheard parents say from time to time about how their young’s happiness hit different. He didn’t understand what the fuck business of his it was that Allhan had someone he was hanging out with, but it was incandescent good news.

And it felt like a long, long time since there had been any of that.

So much death. Destruction. War. Stress.

But somehow, that awkward pretrans, who had come out of his transition tall and strong and good looking, had connected with another carbon-based life-form. And that gave a father faith that sometimes, some things worked out.

“So tell me who we’re seeing?” V asked before he went too far and started explaining exactly why he was laughing-gas happy.

The knock on the door was quintessential Saxton, loud enough to be heard, not too loud in case there was something that the King didn’t want to be interrupted.

“Come in,” Wrath announced.

The solicitor leaned inside the room, his perfectly sculpted blond hair and natty, Saville Row style making him look like the English monarchy had dropped an eighteenth-century earl into present-day Caldwell.

“They’re here, if you’re ready?”

“Yeah, send ’em in.” Wrath refocused on his dog and grabbed for the remaining burger. “They won’t care if George is finishing his dinner.”

“One moment, my Lord.”

Saxton bowed and ducked out, and V went over to the corner he and Butch usually hung in. When he needed an ashtray, he tapped things in the crystal one Fritz kept on the windowsill just for his use. Undoubtedly, the butler, with all his standards, would not have chosen that spot to be where the heavy crystal basin lived, but that was how that head doggen rolled. Whatever anybody needed, that was what—

Saxton reopened the door. “Her Serene Highness Queen Catra, and His Sublime Highness the Prince Consort iAm.”

There was an immediate cheer from the brothers, and after a moment of holy-hell-are-these-my-future-in-laws, V was right there with the greeting, putting his cigarette between his front teeth and clapping—

A couple of walleyed glances had him cutting the weirdo applause.

But hey, wouldn’t it be great if the kids got together, true?

As Wrath put the dog down and rose to his full height, that harsh face relaxed into an honest affection, and V set himself at the end of the receiving line because he wanted to read their faces. Did they know?

Man, it would be a stinger if they did and he and Jane didn’t.

What a good family, though. He’d always respected Trez and iAm. He hadn’t seen the former in about a decade, but the latter had come and asked for help with IT and security consult stuff for the s’Hisbe from time to time. In return, the Shadow was always comping them dinners at Sal’s, and letting them use the place after hours or for parties. Sometimes, he even came in and cooked.

V wasn’t particularly a foodie, but the male was a goddamn maestro at the stove.

And his shellan? If only there were more of her in this world. She was a calm, steady, wise ruler who didn’t take shit. Couldn’t ask for better leadership, and that was why V knew that just last week, Wrath had reached out and asked her for advice in his dealings with the aristocracy here. Beth had certainly consulted with the Shadow Queen when she’d been ruling during her thirty-three years on the throne.

Holy fuck. Could these two eventually be his in-laws?

Please and thank you?

That was what was going through his mind as iAm came up to him, and they clapped palms.

“How you,” the Shadow asked.

“Good, yeah. How’s your daughter?”

What the fuck was coming out of his mouth?

“Oh, she’s okay.” The male’s black eyes flashed with an emotion quickly covered up. “It’s all good. How’s Jane?”

“Good.” V frowned and released that dark palm. “FYI, that ‘okay’ has complication written all over it.”

“It’s a long story.” iAm drew his shellan into his side. “Isn’t that right?”

V inclined his head with honest regard to the Queen. “Your Majesty.”

“Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, how are you.” Catra smiled, her beauty resplendent as she looked around. “And thank you all for letting us come here.”

Wrath spoke up. “Yeah, absolutely. What’s going on?”

“We need some expert opinions on a situation with the humans.”

“You got problems?” someone asked.

“What can we do to help?” somebody echoed.

The story came out in a steady stream of not-so-hot: Data centers. Land grab. Humans being humans and doing human things.

The bastards.

V kept track of the fact pattern because that was what his brain did. It recorded pertinent things and put them in order for a coordinated response. Except as Wrath and the brothers talked to the Shadows to tease out details, and Saxton discussed things about lawsuits and negotiations, he retreated not just to his corner, but in his consciousness.

As he smoked his cigarette down and immediately lit another one, he focused on iAm’s face. He just didn’t like the tension in it, and he really hadn’t liked that response.

Okay? Dennesha was “okay.”

Fucking Caldwell.

Always something.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Out at the Sugar Loaf Scenic Lookout, Allhan’s view was restricted to the wheel well of the seat behind the driver’s, his face mashed into the tread on the contoured, hard plastic floor mat. With his nose bending to meet his cheek, and one eyelid peeled so wide, it was nearly at his hairline, he was amazed that he could still breathe. Was he breathing? He didn’t know.

Didn’t care.

The single most incredible sensation in his whole miserable fucking life had just wiped his proverbial slate clean with a sandblast of pure pleasure. And in the floating aftermath, he could only think of two things: One, he wanted to do it again. Like now.

And two, he wanted Denne to feel this, too.

“Are you all right?” she asked from up front.

“Are you even kidding me.” As he swallowed, he tasted chemical lemon and thought of the man who had cleaned everything up. “You want to join me back here?”

Denne’s throaty laugh went straight into his bloodstream. “How about we help you up first so you don’t look like you were in a car crash?”

“I’m great.” He grunted and pushed something that had carpeting on it. “You should try this sometime.”

“Because lumbar support is overrated?”

“I mean, chairs are so confining.”

“I’m coming around to help you.” The door in front opened. “Hold on.”

“Don’t rush. This is really quite comfortable, actually.”

A fresh wash of cold air hit a certain very sensitive foot-long that was not deflating in the slightest. And as Allhan moaned at the tingling thrill that made the thing kick like a mule, the side panel next to him opened.

“Okay, so this is not the most dignified look,” he said with a grimace. “Especially given what…”

“We just did?” she murmured.

“To be fair, it was all you.” When there was a pause, he frowned. “Is there something wrong? Apart from the obvious.”

“I’m trying to figure out an approach.” She laughed. “I had no idea the male body could do that.”

Allhan raised his forefinger to make a point—and hoped he didn’t poke himself in the eye. Or the ass.

“It can’t.”

Denne laughed so hard she snorted, and then he felt her take one of his arms. Things got very pinchy from there. As they both worked to reposition him, he was unaware of exactly how many nerve endings he had, but they were firing all at once. What he was clear on? Between Denne’s scent in his nose, the remnants of the orgasm, and all of the weird nooks and crannies created by the truck’s foot-level profile, he couldn’t decide whether he was going through an obstacle course in zero gravity.

Or if he was the course.

But then he was upright and stuffing himself over to the passenger side in the back so Denne had room to join him. As she shut the door, they were both breathing hard, and then he was looking at her.

“Can I kiss you again?”

Her eyes dropped down to his lap, and that was when he saw himself.

His fly was not just totally open, the waistband of his jeans was down around his thighs—and talk about obscene. The erection sticking straight up from his hips was so thick and hard, it was almost like it was someone else’s.

“Sorry,” he said as he clamped his hands over the length.

Wrong idea. Not even his wide palms could cover things up properly, but also any contact made his cock jump like it was ready to shake hands with the world.

As he hissed through his teeth, Denne took his face in her hands and the kissing started up again. By this time, he knew just what she liked, the way she moaned when he nipped her lower lip with one of his fangs, how when he entered her with his tongue, she jolted against him. And he wanted more.

So did she.

With a lithe shift, she straddled him, and then eased back. God, he could look up at her forever—

Denne crisscrossed her arms and drew up her black button-down shirt, revealing smooth dark skin, and breasts that were tight from the cold. His hands went to them by instinct, an awe that was nearly religious calling him to touch the soft skin and the peaked nipples. The arch she gave him in response was epic, and the next thing he knew he was kissing her neck, her collarbone… and going farther.

He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but as he brought his hands to the sides of her and gently moved in, he caressed one tip and then the other with his lips. Then he experimented with sucking on her—

The sound she made went right to his erection, and the damn thing started in with a heartbeat faster than the ticker in his chest. Pounding need was all he knew, to the point where he became possessed by a protective urge to defend, and feed, and service her with his body. It was unlike any drive he’d ever felt, but he welcomed it home as if the bonding was as intrinsic to him as his pale blue eyes and his dark hair.

This was more than love.

It was elemental. Fundamental.

Utterly defining to him as a male.

With a curse, she was the one who backed off again and her heavy-lidded eyes flashed peridot, the green light draping him in mystery and beauty.

“I’m going to sit on your lap,” she told him.

“Sit on me anywhere.”

Splitting her thighs, she settled herself on his erection, and he bit down on his lower lip so he didn’t growl like a lion. And then she started moving. Leaning back, she sprawled her arms out and rode him with her hips, the undulations right over his arousal, the way her breasts bumped, and the smooth coiling and releasing of her abdomen, utterly hypnotic.

He ran his hands all over her breasts—except then he noticed the goosebumps.

“You must be cold,” he said in a guttural voice.

“You’re fucking kidding, right. Undo my pants.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As she shifted off him, he expected his hands to be sloppy. They were not. His fingers zeroed in on the button and zipper like they were locks he could pick in his sleep. The pants were black and loose, and he thought of her at the restaurant, serving food—

No, she worked in the office.

As he edited in an old-fashioned calculator because he’d never been out in the real world and he’d only watched old school TV, the two sides of her fly gave way.

Her panties were black.

He must have made a face because she laughed in that way she did, and somehow managed to pull everything down. A quick hop into the other seat, and a shuck down her smooth, elegant legs, and she was naked.

Well, wasn’t this a trend he was getting on.

Too bad as he reached for the bottom of his hoodie and shirt, he could only yank and twist and get things crammed up under his pits.

“Here, I’ll help,” she said.

He stilled. Especially because she got back on him.

With the curling ends of her hair falling around her bare shoulders like a shawl, and her hands drawing down the zipper on his chest, he had a moment of eternity.

“I was right,” he said. “This is the best night of my life.”

She stopped, her shining green eyes locking on his. And then a piercing sadness replaced the hunger on her face, the light draining out of her eyes.

“Mine, too,” she whispered.

He wanted to ask her what she meant, what was wrong, what he could do to help. But her face closed off from him, a mask settling over her features.

Allhan stroked her cheek. “I wish…”

“I know.”

As she leaned in and pressed her lips against his, he felt like they were making a vow that was strong in this moment, but nothing that could last outside of this hungry, heady privacy they’d artificially created by coming out to this faraway place. And in an insane emotional surge, he wanted to tell her he loved her.

Because that was what he was feeling.

He wasn’t looking to ruin this fleeting time they had together, though.

“I’m really glad I met you,” he said, tracing her face with trembling fingertips. “And this is a good way…”

“To what?”

End things, he thought sadly.

That was what this was, what this had to be.

And it was weird. He hadn’t known how suicidal he’d been until he found something worth living for. Too bad it was way too late. His grand plan with the Brotherhood? There was a reason he hadn’t really sketched out anything past setting up that lesser.

They were going to find him and kill him. And he was going to deserve it.

“Stop thinking,” she said in a soft voice. “Come back to me.”

His eyes brought her into sharp, painful focus. “I am never going to forget you.”

“Me, either, Al.”

With that, Denne stripped his hoodie off his shoulders and arms, and then she peeled his Hanes undershirt up and over his head. As she tossed both aside, he loved the way she looked at his new muscles with a greed that was altogether female. And he especially loved the fact that the green glow returned.

Why couldn’t they have met under different circumstances—

“Where have you gone again, Al.”

His hands returned to her waist, and he absorbed the warmth of her dark skin, the feel of her ribs expanding as she breathed, the promise of what was going to happen if he touched her breasts again.

“Wherever it is,” she said, “don’t go there. We’ve got to make this time last.”

“Where are you heading to,” he asked. “After we…”

He already knew the answer: It was someplace he couldn’t follow.

And that had nothing to do with whatever reasons were on his side.

When he brought her back to his mouth, she came to him like water, flowing over him, capsizing him so that he could drown in her. Her hands went to his arousal, and he felt her reposition him so that he was angled up—

His head jerked back so hard, he nearly knocked himself out on the back headrest, and the hiss that sizzled through his locked teeth was loud as a firecracker.

Her sex engulfed his arousal in a hot, wet hold that shorted his brain out completely, and that was exactly what he needed. She was right. No more thinking. There would be time for that later, too much time.

Denne rode him nice and slow at first, but then she got fucking serious about it. Dizzy yet grounded, hungry yet hoping they could stay in this heady anticipation forever, he held on to her loosely so she had all the freedom to move however the hell she wanted to—and it was incredible. Harder, faster, until they were both panting and it might as well have been July instead of the depths of winter.

As he started to come inside of her, Allhan knew that summer was the best way to describe everything she brought to him. He had been alone in his lies for so long, imprisoned by what he had done and who he was deceiving now, that he hadn’t noticed the cold that was in his soul.

Denne was his January thaw.

A blessing that warmed him.

But was not going to last.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Of course he fucking went down to where Bitty was.

As L.W. strode through the rustic hall, he couldn’t lie to himself. He wanted to see her while he still could, his mind’s memory banks literally where he was going to keep the most precious things: The way her auburn hair curled around her face, and the color of her eyes, and the way she smiled. And the sound of her voice wasn’t a bad chaser.

His body was like a tuning fork for that shit.

Stopping at the head of the corridor, he looked past all the cultivated Adirondack crap. The female was standing under one of the recessed lights, and the planes and angles of her face were so blurry that her scent was what told him who she was. In response, his eyes became desperately restless as he tried to settle the pockets of focus on the whole when all he got were snapshots of the parts: Her eyes, her lips, her high cheeks, her gentle chin.

In the periphery, her white parka and black snow pants registered and were the kind of thing the protective side of him approved of.

He didn’t want her cold, ever.

“—hard on you.” She shrugged. “Just felt the need to check in.”

Shuli cleared his throat like there was a lump in it. “You’re such a female of worth.”

That’s when it happened. The male stretched out his arms and stepped up to her.

As L.W.’s vision abruptly sharpened, his body moved of its own volition, shooting into the open, his dagger hand going immediately to one of the steel weapons strapped, handles down, to his chest—

Bitty looked over Shuli’s shoulder in shock, and the instant she saw him and his aggression, all the warmth and compassion went out of her face. The mask that replaced it was something he had made. He had done that.

As he halted, Rhamp hissed, “Are you insane?”

Well, yeah. He was.

And the only way he could convince his hand to let go of his weapon’s hilt was to remind that hard grip that he was just making things worse. Proving he was even more unhinged. And wasn’t that a skill he’d excelled at.

Bitty stepped out of Shuli’s hold and pulled her puffer back into place. “Yeah. So.”

“Thanks for coming,” Shuli muttered. While he no doubt shot a glare in L.W.’s direction, not that he could see that aristocratic face clearly enough. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Cheerful’s still with us. You know, he just brightens up every room he walks into, doesn’t he.”

“Like an H-bomb,” Rhamp agreed.

Ignoring the peanut gallery, L.W. nodded at the female. “Good to see you.”

An acrid scent hit the airwaves, a sure sign she was pissed. “Mm-hmm. Well, I just wanted to come by because I was thinking about you all.”

“We’re okay,” Rhamp said firmly, as if he were drawing a line in the sand. “There’s no report that you need to file on our mentals.”

“Oh, this is not a professional visit or anything,” she said. “I mean, just because I work at Safe Place with—well, anyway. It’s as a friend. I came here… as a friend.”

“You’re welcome anytime.” Shuli motioned around like he was trying to sell the joint. “But I’m going to warn you.”

“About the food?” Rhamp interjected. “Because we have none?”

“Nah, Willhis is due back any minute from Hannaford’s Kingston. I’m just saying, chances are we’ll be out climbing the mountain and enjoying winter sports.”

“Have I mentioned how much I love your butler?” Rhamp put his palms together and victory-waved them at the ceiling in such exaggeration, even L.W. saw it. “Thank you, Lassiter.”

Shuli shouldered up one of the bags of weapons. “I told you he was fooding up the place for us—”

“Did you?” Rhamp picked up a duffle that rattled like it was full of metal. Because it was. “When?”

“Around noontime—”

“Oh, my bad. I was drunk.”

“Huh. So was I.” Shuli headed for the stairs that vaguely registered over on the left. “Maybe I thought you’d read my mind?”

“Maybe I did and forgot.”

Still chatting, the pair of them descended to the lower level, and as L.W. listened to their back-and-forth, he realized it was the kind of thing that he usually drowned out. Yet with Bitty a couple of yards away from him, he hung on the retreating words because it was easier than dealing with the awkward silence that slammed in between him and the female, solid as a stone wall.

Down below, a door closed, and he wondered whether the boys were giving him some privacy on purpose or if whatever room they were going into had a weighted panel that closed on its own.

L.W. refocused on the female, and braced himself for her to say something that tore him up. Something that was insightful and kind, that beat back the defensive bullshit that he put out to the world. And it was as he waited to hear her voice that he realized that what he liked best about her, even more than her eyes and her hair, her simple way of being beautiful, her soft smile…

Was the way she saw him. Really saw him.

And that was a pussy move in a lot of ways, and also shouldn’t have mattered. And he’d tried to tell himself, over and over again, that it didn’t.

His sleepless days proved otherwise, and so did his need to explain himself. Which, like worrying about anybody else, was another thing he never did.

Taking a deep breath, he knew he’d been waiting to see her again, so he could explain why, when he’d been injured and she’d offered him her vein, he’d had to refuse—

“Bye.”

With a casual lift of her palm, like he didn’t matter to her in the slightest, Bitty turned away and opened the front door. And then she was gone as soon as she stepped over the threshold, dematerializing between one heartbeat and another.

Leaving him with nothing but the winter night.

And the reality that what he had to offer was way too little, way too late.

Back at the Audience House, Vishous was still keeping quiet. Unsurprisingly, Saxton was going to help the Queen and iAm set up some responses to the humans’ bright fucking ideas, and Fritz was going to file the papers right up the assholes of the attorneys-at-law who had been hired to intimidate the s’Hisbe.

They were just going to switch the butler’s formal black-and-white uniform for a navy blue pinstripe and a power tie. Not a problem.

And there was no one better than Fritz at holding a line with pleasant firmness.

Those humans weren’t going to know what hit them.

But that wasn’t what V was thinking about while the meeting broke up. As with when the royal couple had arrived, he hung back as everybody goodbye’d, and then he made like he was just doing the escorting thing as he led the Shadows out of the Audience Room and into the core as the VIPs they were.

With a pair like this, you weren’t going to run them out by the waiting room. Not with everything that was going on with the aristocracy these nights.

V promptly showed them out of the secured interior, but instead of leading them into the kitchen and to the back door, he walked the Queen and her consort into the little TV room where he and Butch watched the Sox play during breaks when it was baseball season.

Then he launched into it.

“Listen, I don’t mean to stick my nose into your business.” He glanced back and forth between them. “Is Dennesha okay? You need anything with her?”

Again, he had to wonder if they knew about Allhan. And then tried for a second time not to feel like a little bitch as he thought maybe her parents had been told but not him and Jane.

As if the information was a parenting trophy.

Annnnd what do you know… they weren’t answering him.

Abruptly, iAm looked at the Queen. When she just started walking around, and pretending to be looking at the shelves full of carved wooden ducks and framed pressed flowers from the Victorian era, V thought, Well, fuck. This is gonna be great news.

But come on, how bad could it be?

“Denne’s fine,” iAm hedged as he also glanced away. “Really, it’s nothing.”

Maybe the young had met at Sal’s, V thought. Although how would Al have gone to the restaurant before his transition in the first place? He was always working and didn’t know how to drive a car.

Still didn’t, actually. Considering how he’d handled that truck.

“We just want her to be happy.”

V glanced back at the Queen as she spoke. Catra was leaning into a lineup of Charles Dickens books.

“She’s your daughter,” V agreed. “That’s how it goes.”

“Are these first editions?” Catra asked.

“Probably.” He took out a cigarette, but didn’t light it in the close quarters. “They came from Darius’s house. My brother would have had nothing less.”

“May I?”

“Yeah. G’head.”

The Queen’s elegant hand pulled out one of the volumes. “David Copperfield.”

“Real slice of life.”

“Yes, full of all kinds of characters. Good and bad.” She was gentle as she opened the cover and checked the title page. “Yes, first edition—and signed. Very, very rare. I wonder who Tomat was? That was to whom it was inscribed.”

“Old friend of D’s. Knew Dickens.”

“You probably read this when it first came out, didn’t you.”

“Yup.”

The Queen put the volume back, taking care that it lined up with the other spines. Meanwhile, V wanted to fucking scream.

And then there was only strained silence.

Until the bomb dropped:

“She’s getting mated,” the Queen announced. “To my Tretary.”

V blinked. And then lit his fucking cigarette so he could hide his expression. “Oh, yeah? Congratulations.”

Jesus Christ, Caldwell. Then again, he had given it a challenge by being in a good mood for once.

“Thank you,” iAm said in a dead voice. “We’re absolutely thrilled.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

When Denne finally collapsed, her head went to Allhan’s shoulder, and she let herself just melt into his strong chest. Talk about exertion. Their combined body heat and all the heavy breathing had not only fogged up the windows, but she was totally naked except for her socks and felt just fucking fine. And as her heart rate gradually slowed, she wanted to stay like this forever.

Too bad she knew that she had to go.

“Let me get your jacket,” he murmured. There was a shift as he reached into the front seat. “I don’t want you to get cold.”

“No chance of that.”

Except that was a lie. The reality of heading back to the s’Hisbe and everything waiting for her there made her feel like she was outside in the snow, alone. And that spring was never, ever coming.

The way Al draped her with the parka and then wrapped her in his arms made her feel the loss of him so acutely, it was like they had already left each other.

“Allhan…”

“Yes?”

She sat up and looked at his pale, handsome face. Tracing his jawline and then his eyebrows, she pushed herself to say what she had to, namely that they couldn’t meet up again, they couldn’t talk, they couldn’t text. It was going to have to be a cold turkey solution, and it needed to start now.

Unfortunately, the exiting had just gotten even harder after what they’d done here.

And it wasn’t that she regretted the sex. Not at all.

Shit was going to be more and more difficult if the contact continued.

“So this is where you tell me no,” he said in a deep voice. “That we can’t see each other.”

When she nodded, tears started to well. “I’m so sorry.”

She braced herself for an argument from him. Or anger. Or a pathetic attempt at begging.

Instead, he only inclined his head. “Me, too. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know.”

They needed to get dressed, and he needed to dematerialize out, and she had to somehow see through the crying well enough to drive back to Caldwell and stash the truck at that little house she’d managed to buy and keep for herself. She’d always had some fantasy of living there full-time while she worked at the restaurant.

That was as far as she’d ever looked into the future.

Now she was staring at the years ahead of her, and feeling like time was a burden that had weight and barbs. She’d never particularly thought of the days and nights ahead as an opportunity, per se, but hey, nothing like living your whole life knowing that the male you loved was alive and not with you to make the centuries in front of you feel like a curse.

Not that she actually loved Al, of course.

Just a turn of phrase.

Really.

“What is it, Denne,” he asked in a hoarse voice. “Can you talk to me?”

No. “It’s nothing.”

Which was what the years were going to be like.

She shrugged. “I just wish I had a different destiny. Or maybe had met you the night before we ran into each other in that clearing.”

Except, that wouldn’t have changed that chart, would it. Or those two fallen stars.

“I’m just glad I knew you at all.” His eyes searched her face. “I’d rather miss you forever than not have tonight.”

Tears really came now. “How can you say that?”

“It’s the truth. And the truth is always easy to speak.”

“Not always.” She shook her head. “Not in my case.”

Al stroked her braids. “You’re getting mated, aren’t you.”

Emotion tackled her, until she stuttered. “I… I…”

“It’s okay.” He grimaced. “I mean, it’s not okay. But it’s all right. Do you love him—”

“No. And he doesn’t love me. It’s just what has to happen.”

“Arranged matings are common in my family, too.” He wrapped one of her curls around his finger. “Will he at least treat you right?”

“Yes, always. He is a male of worth, who will make sure I am taken care of.”

“That’s good.”

“You’re so… accepting of this.” She almost wanted him to fight for her. Which was fucking insane. “I’m… grateful.”

Oh, fuck that gratitude shit for a laugh. She wanted him to… well, do what? Kill t’On in a fit of jealous rage? Where the hell did she think that was going to get them. A good male dead so they could be together? No. That was so not it.

“I wish I could change things for you. For us.” Abruptly, his face hardened. “But my own course has been set for a while now.”

“Your sister.”

“Yes.”

As she stared down at the anger that cut into his handsome features, she shivered. “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You tell me.”

It was a long moment before he shook his head. “No. I’m not.”

“I don’t think I believe that.” Denne cursed under her breath. “Can you at least ask for help—”

“Don’t worry about me.” He ran his hands down her arms. “And this goodbye for us is just where our story led. Kiss me again, and then it’s time for us both to go. If I stay here any longer, I’m going to never leave you, and that is just… not what’s best for you.”

Denne went back to cradling his face between her hands. After a long moment, she whispered, “I don’t love you, Allhan. It’s… too soon for that.”

His eyes became glassy with tears as well. “I don’t love you, too, Denne. Oh, God, I don’t love you at all.”

Squeezing her lids shut, she pressed her lips to his. And then they stayed like that, their mouths sealed, him still deep inside of her.

They were like two shooting stars, she thought, flaring brilliantly, beautifully.

And fading just as fast.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The gentlemale-ly thing to do would be to ride back to Caldwell with Denne to make sure she got there safely. But as Allhan stepped out of her truck, he didn’t trust himself to let her go when they got back to town. He was not right on the inside, and instinctively, he knew that he was on the cusp of throwing logic to the wind just to keep them together.

Given everything she’d said—and all she hadn’t spoken—he’d figured she was tied to another, and he was well familiar with the disaster of arranged matings. But she’d seemed sure that the male was going to treat her well, and he told the protective side of himself that that had to be enough. It was certainly all he was going to get.

Holding the door open for her, he offered her his hand, and when she took it, she didn’t look at him. Not because she hated him. He knew it that was the opposite of that.

And he was the same.

As he pulled her against him, their bodies fit perfectly, her head on his pecs, her smaller torso lost in his heavier arms. It so happened that he was facing the view and the stars, and as he regarded the night sky, he knew he was paying for his scheming here.

Without everything he’d done, maybe he could have fought for her. He had been a catch, once. From a good family with prospects and money. But his solution to his father had locked him into this nightmare he could never have imagined.

And locked him in with Carmen, too.

Allhan inched back. He wanted to tell Denne to call him if she needed him, if she needed anybody. Except he knew that he was the last person she should reach out to.

“I wish you all of the very best in life,” he said hoarsely. “You deserve nothing less.”

The only peace he could find was doing right by her and never, ever seeing her or contacting her again.

He was not going to get out of the deal with the lesser alive.

“Before you go.” She stroked his face. “Can I ask you one question?”

He nodded. But as there was so much he couldn’t answer for her, he hoped she reconsidered.

“When were you born?”

His brows lifted. “Ah… July fifth.”

She pressed him for the year, and he gave it to her. “And I remember the time,” he tacked on. “Eleven eleven. In the evening. Why do you ask?”

Denne took a deep breath, like she was trying to relieve the very suffocation he was feeling. “I don’t know, I was thinking about doing your astrological chart. But it doesn’t matter, actually.”

The wind blew around them, and he stepped back into her to insulate her with his body. And maybe so he could catch one last moment of feeling her against him.

Then he kissed her on the forehead, and leaned around to open the driver’s-side door of the now-silver truck. “Be careful on the way home. The roads are slippery.”

She nodded. Got behind the wheel. Started that big, throaty engine.

He stepped back so she could turn the truck around, her headlights flaring across him as she re-angled everything and faced the road’s descent down the mountain. There was a moment of suspension, the red taillights glowing brightly, curls of steam coming out of the tailpipes.

Then the brakes were released, and she was off.

Allhan stayed where he was as she disappeared from view, feeling as though his heart was being crushed inside his chest.

Closing his eyes, he told himself he had to go, and began the process of trying to calm things down so he could ghost out.

Just as he felt the shift in his molecules, his phone vibrated in his hoodie pocket.

Thinking it was her, that she’d hit a deer, that a miracle had happened and neither one of them was living the lives they were—

It was his burner going off. And as he went to open the text, he gritted his molars and felt like he was going to scream.

That all went away as he saw the photograph.

It was his sister, standing in front of the glass sliders of her kitchen, staring out at the Hudson River.

Tick-tock was all the lesser wrote.

Denne drove back to the cabin just outside of the Territory in a blur. She had no memory of going down the zigzag of the mountain, no clue how she got on the Northway, no recollection of riding I-87 back toward Caldwell and bailing early so she could rural-road to where she changed those robes out every night. And after she pulled up to the little structure, she sat in the truck’s warm interior and stared out over the hood.

Well, shit. She’d meant go park the truck in its garage at her bolt hole.

Whatever.

There was absolutely no motivation in her at all when she finally got out, and while she walked through the snow to the door, the fact that her body ached in all the right places was just a bitch.

As she entered the cabin, she took off her parka, and instead of keeping her clothes on, she quick-ditched all of them in case there were any scents on them—oh, who was she kidding. Al was all over her, and she wanted it like that. She loved the dark spices on her skin, inside of her body, and she was going to need a hot, bracing shower and a whole lot of soap to get that marking of his off of her.

God, all she could think of was the way Al had touched her. But she needed to let that go.

Over at the robe rack, her hand automatically went to the navy blue one, and that tripped her up for a minute. Mourning. Grief. Pain.

No shit.

It took everything in her to force the royal purple one on, but she couldn’t not wear that color.

Welcome to the rest of your life, she thought.

From out of nowhere, that scene from the ancient second Star Trek movie came back to her: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

“Fuck you, Spock.”

Back in the snow, she closed her eyes and was not surprised it took forever to ghost out. Eventually, she did manage to scatter, and then re-form in front of the royal palace, but all she really wanted to do was turn away and go back to…

“What,” she said bitterly. “What are you going back to.”

Looking up at the nothing-special black glass building, she thought about how smart it was for the s’Hisbe to fly under the radar. Considering how invasive a species humans were, the more you could hide among them the better, using what they could do for you while at the same time staying out of their way. Her mother was so good at navigating that boundary.

And yet staying true to the old ways.

It was that legacy of smart leadership that Denne kept in mind as she entered and proceeded down to check in with her parents. Something monumental had happened in her life, and even though she couldn’t tell them any of the details, the rebounding pain inside her chest made her seek them out. It was a throwback, she supposed, to the way she’d cleaved to her mother and father as a young.

No more scraped knees now. Everything was so much more serious.

When they weren’t in, she went to t’On’s private quarters next, but only because she was girding herself for the future and hoping that maybe, just maybe, there would be a shred of comfort to be had from him. Which was stupid on so many levels, and arguably disrespectful considering she’d just slept with a male.

But when you’re heartbroken, it was an any-port-in-the-storm kind of situation.

The Tretary wasn’t home, either.

Ending up at her own place, she tried to grab a snack from her fridge, except there was a big rate limiter on that. She never put anything in the damn thing. Hungry, tired, and aching, she headed over to her bed and sat down. It was a twin, and as she looked around her room, she realized she didn’t have much in terms of material possessions. Just the black clothes she wore to the restaurant, and the robes she put on to go in and out of the s’Hisbe. There wasn’t even any furniture in here other than a dresser for underwear.

And the fridge she didn’t use.

Actually, that was an appliance, not a piece of furniture, wasn’t it.

“But I do have my truck,” she said aloud.

And she would never again see it and not think of Allhan—

How in the hell was it possible to fall in love with someone you didn’t know, and had barely met? Unless kismet actually existed—and had picked her as a beneficiary for some reason—she clearly was having a psychotic break. Either that or the pressure of mating someone she didn’t give a shit about to save the goddamn world was really getting to her.

No, that wasn’t it. Her feelings might have been ill-timed, and arguably misplaced, but they were real. Even without t’On in the picture, she would have had these emotions for Al.

And the sad thing was, as she looked around the bare walls of her room, she hadn’t realized until now how utterly unconnected she was. To everything and everyone. It was as if for her entire life, she had been waiting for something, a door to be opened, a light to shine, an interior to be revealed. And what was fucked up? All those things, those possibilities, were right in front of her when she was with Al.

Idly, she wondered about his sister. Then her thoughts went back to the straining, desperate passion they’d shared in the truck.

She had been his first.

And when he’d sent her off, the vibe around him had been so dark, it was like he expected her to be his last. That had to be her craziness talking, though. Right?

“Right.”

As she fell silent, it was hard to pinpoint exactly when she decided to get up, but kind of like when she’d been going home, she wasn’t aware of the travel, only the destination. And the fact that she eventually found herself standing in front of the Constellation Room’s entrance wasn’t really a surprise. Stepping inside, she closed the door behind herself. In the low lighting, the white circle in the center was like some kind of mystical firepit, the glow sending something back out to the cosmos that arched over the glass dome.

Taking off her boots, she left them by the door, and then proceeded to the focal point. She did not go inside the circle. That felt like an intrusion into her mother’s territory.

Or like that would somehow hasten bad things happening.

Instead, she walked around the focal point and went over to the door of the chart room. She hesitated before she opened the way in. Unease, coupled with a searing pain she feared she was going to have to get used to, made her very sure the better idea was to turn her ass around and go back to her room.

The next thing she knew she was inside, and standing at the wall of slots into which all of the rolled charts had been slid. Names, written in careful script, identified whose was whose, but the order was fucked up. You had to know what you were looking for to find it, and she felt as though she was doing something wrong as she searched for her own.

Turned out it was easy to locate. She was right by her parents, who had purple wax seals in front of their apertures. As the Queen and the Prince Consort, their charts were only accessible under prescribed circumstances.

And hers had been sealed up that way now, too.

So had t’On’s.

As she touched the purple wax over her own, it was soft. Freshly melted. t’On’s was the same.

Prison, she thought. Her life was a prison.

Pivoting around, she went over to the black marble desk. The bench beneath it slid out easily on the smooth stone floor, and she sat on the hard seat. With a sense that she was being totally fucking inappropriate, she opened the slip drawer and took out the slim laptop.

Among her mother’s modernizations, the computer was one t’On really didn’t approve of. There was a library of constellations elsewhere in the royal palace, in the great room where t’On—like the other Tretarys who had served before him—did his nightly recordings of the evening sky. If someone wanted to consult what the stars’ alignment had been on any given night in history, they were supposed to go there.

But her mother had insisted on having the charts scanned in, shipping the huge tomes over to Vishous at the Black Dagger Brotherhood so that the Brother and his team could digitally record the magnificent, hand-done maps.

Opening the laptop, Denne didn’t have to worry about any sign-in or anything. There was nothing proprietary on it.

All she had to do was click the single icon in the center of the deep-blue screen and then she was in.

Feeling like she was stealing something, she entered…

July 5, and the year, and 11:11 p.m.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Out at the clearing by the river, Allhan stood with his back to the crime scene and stared across at his sister’s safe house. She wasn’t moving around where he could see, but there were open drapes in several rooms and the elegant spaces seemed orderly and undisturbed. So clearly, nothing violent had happened. Then again, how hard was it to kidnap someone who couldn’t fight back?

The lesser wasn’t going to do that, though. Not yet.

Its need for the information was so great that the undead gave Allhan the only leverage he had in the situation: If Carmen was harmed, Allhan was going to kill himself and then the fucker got nothing.

Apparently, his resolve was so clear on that potential outcome the slayer believed him.

Then again, the truth was what it was.

The final part of his plan was the most dangerous, of course, and he ran through it once again: He was going to take a USB drive with the address to the Brotherhood’s housing development to a location south of Caldwell. Then he was going to position himself on Carmen’s property and keep the slayer on the phone. The file would be encrypted, of course, and only he was going to know how to to open it.

Allhan would get Carmen out of that house, explain to her the truth, and then turn over the last of the bank accounts to her.

She would proceed to the safety location Allhan had set up down south, and he would finally call Vishous and ’fess up.

After which he’d verify the funds were in the account and tell the lesser how to get into the file on that USB drive.

And then he would pray the Brotherhood followed their own rules.

At least the emergency protocols for the Wheel were well-practiced by everybody: The doggen staff would come underground, and everybody would proceed out of the tunnel system. Then the Brotherhood would wait for the lessers to attack—in the aboveground houses.

And they would win because there was no better defensive systems than the ones set up by Vishous. No better fighters than the Brothers and their allies.

The slayers would be picked off like cans on a fucking fence.

Meanwhile, Allhan would up and disappear, and figure out some kind of an existence somewhere. Assuming they didn’t somehow find him and kill him. Hacking was one of his best skills, and even with the proliferation of AI, there were plenty of jobs in computing he could get. And certainly creating an identity was easy, and navigating human services was the work of a moment. He would… survive.

Without Denne.

Without Vishous and Jane.

He’d be undead in his own way.

All things considered, it seemed fitting that he’d be trading places with the very enemy he’d been engaging with, him becoming a soulless vessel wandering around, serving the master of a past he was not going to be able to forget in favor of a bleak, infinite future.

Again, assuming he wasn’t hunted and taken out.

As he thought about it all, grief and sorrow bubbled in the back of his mind, his subconscious a stew of regrets and unhappiness. Desperation really was its own special kind of narcissism, and even though he knew that in the selfish things he had done and was prepared to do, he was creating deadly havoc, but what other choice did he have?

Turning around, he looked at where he had first seen Denne. The yellow tape was still up, but the fragile yellow circle was broken, its tail ends waving lazily in the cold wind like they were trying to capture the attention of the disinterested trees.

It was more than a little fucked up to think with a romantic purple haze about a dead guy on the ground.

And that didn’t last as he remembered other bodies he had stood over.

As he scrubbed his face, he felt like he had aged a hundred and fifty years since his transition—and he hadn’t had the bloom of youth to lose anyway. He’d never had that.

At least Carmen would be okay.

Assuming the law of chaos didn’t come by and stomp on all his carefully stood-up dominoes.

Allhan took one last look at his sister, waiting until she walked past one of the windows before he brought up that burner and sent a text:

If anything happens to her, you get nothing.

The response came almost immediately, and it was just a picture of the river, taken from what had to be the back of his sister’s house.

The image was facing him, as if to taunt that the lesser knew where he was standing, right in this very moment.

A growl percolated out of his snarling mouth, rage curling in his body and inflating him from the inside out in the most vicious of ways.

He wanted to kill that motherfucker, and for once, he knew where the bastard was: Except for on that first night, their contact had only ever been by phone.

And now he wasn’t a scrawny pretrans anymore.

All he had to do was dematerialize across the river.

Maybe it was time to change the plan.

And leave the Brothers and all the people he cared about out of this bullshit nightmare his father had created for everybody.

Maybe he just needed to handle this by himself.

Face to face.

In the chart room off the celestry, Denne stared at the laptop screen. She was no expert at reading the stars, but she knew enough to recognize the big markers. In this respect, it was like picking out familiar trees in a landscape you’d lost track of. Once you found them, your orientation swung into place, and you were all oh-right-here-I-am.

Yet even as she studied the cosmos as it had appeared at the moment of Allhan’s birth, she knew this was stupid. Why the hell she wanted to know more about a male she was never going to see again… what a waste of time.

The pathetic answer to that rhetorical was that viewing his chart was the only way to connect to him now, the methadone to her madness as she couldn’t have the real thing. And she was no doubt going to memorize every single twinkler on this layout, until she could see them on the backs of her eyelids.

Measuring the arrangement of stars and galaxies and planets and moons, and mentally laying a grid over them, she tried to see his life in the positions of all the most important quadrants: Love. Family. Young. Spirituality. Purpose. Bloodline. There were so many others, but the big six, as she liked to call them, were what she knew best.

And of them, she focused on… love.

There was one star. One single star.

An abiding love that lasted his whole life, that defined it, and marked it so completely, that no other existed for him.

Her eyes swam with tears. She’d only ever seen it before in one other chart. Her own. And she’d assumed it justified the mating with t’On.

Now she knew the truth.

She would love Al for her entire lonely life of duty as well.

Denne had to look away from the screen. And as soon as she did, she started properly crying. That star was her. It was the only explanation: Somehow, he was going to be faithful to her memory for all of his nights, however many they were. As if they had been long-mated and she’d died.

Unless he didn’t live very long?

With dread, she looked into the other quadrants, but it was like she was reading gibberish. Her mind was jammed with fear and sadness, and no doubt the way her eyes were tripping around the constellations wasn’t helping.

Still, she stayed curled around the screen as if it were a hearth giving her warmth.

It was hard to say when things formed a pattern, and at first, she fought the conclusion that was manifesting. And then she rubbed her eyes and leaned in even closer. As if that was going to change anything?

Except no. There was an arrangement of stars that she had seen just the night before, in her own chart. In the family quadrant, where her parents had been in danger unless she mated t’On. And also in the quadrant associated with the s’Hisbe itself.

Death.

His sister? Oh, fuck. His sister was going to die.

Unless… maybe she was reading it wrong?

Twisting around, she glanced at her slot. Then got up and went over to it. The wax seal had no seams she could ease off, so she ended up breaking the thing. It was her own damn chart, anyway.

Back at the desk, she moved the laptop over and unrolled the parchment from her transition’s reading on top of the glass viewing pane.

There were two parts to every astrological chart, the arrangement of the stars and then the grid. Where the grid was placed on the night sky was determined by your birth date and time, and what its precise position revealed was supposed to represent the person’s destiny. The role of the Tretary, apart from doing nightly maps for consultation, was to read and interpret the intersections between the grid and the cosmos and record what was shown.

Pinpointing the grids on her own chart, she then triangulated what was on the parchment with what showed on the laptop screen.

In the family section, her chart had two death marks that were shadowed, indicating what would happen if she did not take the throne: Her parents died because of something she did.

Allhan’s was not shaded.

It had to be his sister, and she felt a rush of sympathy for him. Something he was going to do would cause her death, and what a curse to bear. And given how haunted he was as he stared across the river at that glass house, it was like he knew what was coming.

To have the blood of a family member on your hands… she couldn’t imagine bearing that guilt.

Which was why she was mating a male she didn’t love.

Maybe there was still a way she could help Al? Even with every-thing she was going through herself?

Was the answer in the stars, she wondered.

Opening another tab on the laptop, she entered her own birthday and instantly the screen populated with her grid system and star arrangement. A couple of clicks on the mouse pad and she added a grid to Al’s and then merged the two charts, everything swinging around to overlay, her in yellow, Al in red.

Her eyes bounced around again, looking for a place to land.

Of course she went to love first, and though their other grid parts were in different places, boxing different stars, both of their heart sections settled over that single northern star.

And framing the upper corners were two shooting stars on a path to intersect right across that glowing pinpoint of light.

A chill went through her.

9:19 on a winter’s night. The pair of them in that clearing. Every-thing changing in her life at that moment.

Wait a minute.

What if the prophecy was about her meeting Allhan. And he was her destiny.

What if the sacred intersection in the heavens had been about them?

Except of course, because fate was a fucking asshole, it didn’t mean they ended up together. Nah, they just got to be miserable for the rest of their lives, missing the true love they should have had, could have had, if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

Not how things worked, though.

She had to wipe her eyes again. And as her heart ached so badly it was like she’d been kicked in the chest, she dropped her hands and stared at the screen. There were so many similarities, she realized, grids lining up, stars intersecting. It was as if their destinies were, and always had been, inextricably entwined.

t’On had interpreted things in another way, though.

“Oh, who the fuck knows…”

Later, she would think about the moment that came next, dissecting it over and over again to isolate the instant that awareness came to her. There was no way of tracking that, however, because it was a gradual thing, like a camera pulling out details as its lens was focused.

Her eyes drifted over to the family grid on her chart.

She sucked in a gasp.

There were two stars in the death orientation, yes. Except here, they were shining brightly, no shadow that had been interpreted and drawn there identifying a future that could be prevented.

That couldn’t be right.

Frowning, she pulled her parchment back over. God, she wished she’d paid better attention to the homework her tutor had assigned instead of sneaking out to swim in those frickin’ ponds.

She’d thought those astrological lessons had been trigonometry she’d never use. Instead, they were paramount knowledge she desperately needed right now.

Doing what she could to track the differences between what the laptop was showing and what was on the chart that had been drawn, an alarm started going off in her head

Unless she was totally wrong… the constellation arrangement on the screen was a warning to her.

But not for what she’d been told to do.

On the laptop, it appeared as if, were she to continue on her course and mate t’On, that both her parents died and the s’Hisbe was destroyed.

Denne’s eyes went back and forth between the parchment and the screen so many times she got dizzy. Or maybe that was from the conclusion that was propagating in her mind. She just wished she was more confident in her ability to read the grids and stars so she could be more sure.

But it certainly looked like the physical copy of her chart had been doctored: What was shadowed on the parchment was the actual outcome.

And there was only one explanation that made any sense.

t’On had fabricated the whole thing.

Her heart started pounding. She had to go to her parents right now—

“What are you doing?” her mother’s Tretary demanded from the doorway.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Down below at the palace entrance, iAm opened the glass door and stood aside for his shellan. As Catra went by him, he was very aware of having reached a conclusion there was no coming back from. The situation with Denne had been tying him up even before they’d met with Wrath and the Brotherhood about the eminent domain stuff, and he’d been distracted during the discussion. The truth was, however, his mind was locking into a rock-solid position about their only offspring, and he was now stuck trying to figure out how to talk to his beloved shellan about it.

There was just so much swirling around his mate that he didn’t want to add more stress. But he was going to have to voice his opinion.

This was not about the crown and the Territory. This was about him as a father.

“I wish I could do something for Wrath,” his Queen said. “He’s always there when we need him.”

“Amen to that.” He put his arm around her. “You’re an important ally for him, too, though. Humans and lessers are everywhere, and his throne and the Brotherhood are in the thick of it. You’ve helped him a lot as well.”

She laughed a little. “You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Vishous smile.”

“Me, neither. It didn’t last, though.”

“No.” Her brows settled low. “But that’s the way of happiness, isn’t it. The pain tends to be what lingers.”

They didn’t say anything else as they went downstairs to their private quarters. A couple of courtiers passed by on the steps, and the purple robes and the glow in those dark faces was like getting punched in the gut. Once again, he was forced to reflect on how the whole s’Hisbe had come alive in a way it hadn’t been for a decade.

Yet here he was, feeling like they were sending their only young off to the slaughter—

Catra stopped in the middle of the hallway, the glossy white marble floor, walls, and ceiling reflecting her beautiful, robed form.

When her black eyes met his own, he suddenly had the feeling what she was going to say before she spoke the word that was banging around in his own skull:

“No.”

“I’m sorry?” he said urgently, because he had to be sure they were thinking the same thing. “What? What’s no—”

“I cannot let Denne mate him. I don’t care what that chart projects. You and I will protect ourselves, we will take care of us. And if she’s supposed to be Queen now, fine. I’ll step down. But I will not condemn our daughter to a loveless mating just to protect us from something that’s on a piece of parchment.”

iAm deflated with a relief so great he weaved on his feet, and he nodded furiously. “I agree totally. No.”

Catra exhaled like she was also putting down a boulder. “Okay. Good… thank God.”

Even though it was not customary for them to show any affection in public, he pulled her into him and held her close.

“Thank God,” he murmured as he stared over his Queen’s head.

The mirror effect of the subterranean corridor made him feel as though he had tunnel vision and was on the verge of passing out. And in the unlikely case that it was not an optical illusion, and his blood pressure was actually tanking, he piloted them to their private door. That it was purposefully not ornate or highlighted in any way had him reflecting, not for the first time, that the simplicity of the black jambs and plain black door reflected his shellan’s natural humility.

As he entered the code and pushed, the heavy weight was a good reminder that the panel was four-inch steel, bombproof, fireproof, and impenetrable. And when they stepped inside, he looked around their cozy residence as if he expected something to have changed given the momentous decision they were making.

The lights flaring to life across the ceiling proved everything was the same.

Those tiny LED bulbs sparkled overhead, and after Catra sat down on the black velvet sofa and turned nothing else on, he watched as she let her head fall back against the soft pillows. Her eyes scanned the pattern.

It was the night sky as it had appeared on the evening they were mated.

He had always loved that she wanted that particular display in their home. Then again, the pair of them and their love was the basis of everything, the very best part of his life, what grounded him, what made him happy.

Their daughter deserved the same. Or at least the chance to find something like what they had.

“I just can’t.” She shook her head and rearranged the golden folds of her robing. “I don’t know what we do, but when I couldn’t be totally honest with Vishous when he asked about Denne… all I could think was what the hell were we doing to our daughter.”

Yup, the syllables that had come out of his mouth to the Brother had also been nothing but forced hot air.

Which was what happened when you were trying to sell yourself on a bad fucking idea by laying it out to somebody else.

iAm walked over and sat with his shellan. Assuming the same tilt into the velvet sofa, he measured the alignment of lights overhead, and wondered why he thought a group of disinterested dead rocks and glowing, hot balls of energy had jack shit to do with anything. He and Catra had met and fallen in love, and yeah, sure, there had been a bunch of crap that was unusual and dangerous around them at the time, but at the core was the simple, profound alchemy that happened when you were attracted to someone you were fundamentally compatible with.

Both a miracle and a biological imperative, the miracle being the get-along part.

“So what the hell do we do now,” Catra murmured. Then she turned her head to him. “We can get more guards here for us. That will make her feel safer.”

“Or maybe it’s all wrong.” He motioned to the ceiling. “What if this is all just superstition—or worse, something that’s random, but that’s nonetheless been used for centuries not to predict the future, but determine it. Because we’ve done what we’ve told ourselves we’ve had to.”

Glancing back at her, he reached out and took his mate’s hand. “I would have fallen in love with you the moment I saw you no matter what was in the night sky. That’s about you and me, and the universe we create when we’re together. When I look into your eyes. When you’re naked beside me and it’s just the two of us. That’s about you and me, not the stars.”

Her face softened and she leaned in, kissing him softly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Cupping her face, he said, “And that’s what Denne needs in her life. A chance to find this. If she signs on for that chart, and a male she’s not in love with, she’ll never have a shot at what we have. We can figure out the rest, but it starts with ending this madness.”

“I agree.”

As they fell silent, he thought about matters of safety and security. s’Ex, the former executioner, had had an entire army at his disposal, back thirty years ago. Those males were still in the Territory, but hadn’t been used in decades. With Catra’s mother dead, there had been no reason to think about threats except for how they related to the humans around the boundary and all their incessant paperwork.

The sense that the war with the Lessening Society was far from the Territory had led to a complacency that he now realized he’d mistaken for safety.

“We do have the resources to defend ourselves.” In a lower voice, he added, “And I will protect you and Denne against anyone and anything. Let’s go find our daughter.”

In the chart room, Denne slapped the laptop shut and forced a smile. “I was just coming to find you.”

Over at the doorway, t’On filled the jambs, his purple robe building out the width and height of his body in a way that was abruptly threatening: With the glow from the dome streaming in behind him, he was nothing but a black outline, his face cast in shadow.

“You should not be in here with the charts,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. Then deliberately put her palm in the center of the parchment she’d unrolled. “This is mine.”

And she was talking about so much more than the damn reading.

“No, that is the ruler of the s’Hisbe’s domain. And that is not you.”

Denne rose to her feet. Just as she was about to stride over to him, a voice echoed throughout the celestry.

“Denne?”

From over t’On’s shoulder, she could see her father walking across the floor.

“There you are,” he called out. “I’ve been looking for you.”

With a quick shift, t’On turned and bowed low. “Your Sublime Highness.”

“You okay?” It was like iAm didn’t even see the other male. “Denne?”

“I’m fine.” She pinned a smile on her face. “Just talking to my intended. We’re so excited about the big night. Aren’t we.”

As t’On bowed briefly in her direction, she sensed his eyes focusing with suspicion on her. Still, he murmured, “Yes. It is what I have been waiting for, these many years. A new era, for us all. Is there aught I may do for you, Your Highness?”

“No, I’m here for Denne.” iAm nodded to the exit. “If you don’t mind.”

At that moment, Catra entered the celestry.

t’On glanced back at the Queen. Then he inclined his torso once again. “As you wish. My pleasure.”

Then there was a pause, as though he didn’t want to go. Eventually, the Tretary turned away.

It wasn’t until the entrance opened and closed behind the male that her father moved again. And then it was only to double back and peek outside, clearly to make sure that t’On had actually left.

Abruptly, iAm returned with heavy strides, bypassing her and going to the chart. Picking it up, he tore the parchment in half—

“What are you doing!” she exclaimed.

Shaking his head, he just kept ripping. Until she leaped forward and yanked what was left out of his hands. “Have you lost your mind!”

“Yeah, I have.”

Her mother stepped into the chart room. “We both have.”

Denne dropped to her knees and started gathering up the pieces.

“You’re not doing this, Denne,” her mother said. “We’re not going to let you mate him—”

She surged up to her feet, and tried to find the words for what she’d seen in the charts as she attempted to put it back together. Or… what she’d thought she’d seen. What if she was wrong, though? She didn’t really know what she was talking about, and if t’On had actually manipulated everything, that was treason.

And it would get him killed.

iAm closed the screen on the laptop and pointed back at the door. “You do not love that male and this is about you and your life.”

Looking back and forth at them, she tried to stop the tears as she tangled in her head.

“We decided our destinies,” her father said roughly. “And if your mother and I need saving, or the s’Hisbe does, that’s on us. Not you. The only thing you have to do is figure out what you want for yourself, and go get it.”

Between one blink and the next, she saw Allhan’s face staring up at her as she took his body for the first time.

Everything slowed down. Her racing panic, her tumbling thoughts. The whole damn world.

“This is my life,” she whispered as she tried the concept on for size.

What do you know, it was like something clicked into place, something she had been ignoring for years. As she spun away in a daze and drifted over to all the slots with all the charts of the living members of the s’Hisbe, she realized… she couldn’t imagine the Territory and its traditions not existing.

Running her hands across the little boxes, she choked out, “I think I’ve always been so scared of being responsible for these people, this way of life.” She glanced back at her parents, and focused on her mother. “If I’ve seemed unconnected all these years, it’s really because I’m afraid I can’t live up to you and the example you set. And what you do. And also because I can’t imagine you both not here. But I think, although I’m not ready to be Queen yet… I might finally be ready to accept the calling.”

Al had opened her heart. Blown right past the lockdown she’d always imposed out of fear.

And if there was some way to have him with her? Well, then she could do anything.

Nodding at her parents, she blinked away the tears. “This is my future.”

Now, she just had to make sure they were in it.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The following evening, just as the sun was setting over Caldwell and the cold night was coming once again, Allhan rubbed his gritty eyes and shuffled his feet off his bed. As his bare soles hit the carpet, his head pounded from one hell of a tension migraine so he gripped his toes into the short nap and thought of that old movie Die Hard. Testing out the theory that you could calm yourself by doing curls with your phalanges, he quickly decided that theory had just been movie magic.

The teeny tiny workout didn’t do anything for the iron lock of stress at the nape of his neck.

But at least he hadn’t done something impulsive and stupid down by the river close to dawn.

In the end, he’d decided to be smart instead of aggressive. Even as every hot-tempered, testosterone-injected neuron had fired like rifles in his brain, some part of him had kept himself together enough to know that it was a death sentence to go over there. For Carmen. He didn’t give a damn what happened to him, but if he rushed across the waterway all half-cocked and crazy, against a trained and armed slayer—who clearly had at least one accomplice? The barely managed seesaw he’d put himself and his sister on was going to tilt into at least one grave.

He needed logic and strategy, not emotion. That was the only acceptable way to proceed, and he’d spent the entire day doing nothing but thinking—

As his phone went off with a text, he closed his eyes and prayed it wasn’t a picture of his sister mutilated beyond recognition.

Except it was his Samsung.

He brought the thing up and saw the number. “Denne…?”

In a scramble to read her message, he nearly dropped the cell, but he managed to sign in.

I need to see you tonight. Come to Sal’s.

“Do not do this,” he said to himself. It was just going to torture them both.

And yet his fingers flew over the screen to respond: Coming soon as can

Unfortunately, a quick check of the time told him that if he went out now, he was going to be toasted into oblivion. In twenty minutes, though? He’d just have a sunburn.

He could live with that.

Heading to the bathroom so he could distract himself, he turned on the shower and checked his face in the mirror. He felt so different inside that it made sense the face staring back at him was that of a stranger.

And not just because he’d been through the change.

As he met his own eyes, he ran his hand over his jaw and then picked up his electric razor. He didn’t have much stubble, so a single pass was all he required. Then he was under the hot rush, and quick about the cleaning, especially when he got to what he’d always referred to as his private area.

His soapy hands paused as he gripped his dick. Quick, vivid memories of Denne flooded his mind and senses, and the next thing he knew, his palm was sliding up and down his shaft. With ever increasing speed, he jerked himself from the ridge around his head to the base of his arousal, up and down, faster and faster—

The memory of the sound his female had made in his ear as she started to orgasm kicked off the coming, and he had no idea how many times or how much he ejaculated. He just knew that he had to slap his free hand on the slick wall of the shower to keep from falling as he kept releasing and releasing.

The scent of dark spices that rose up all around him told him everything he didn’t need to know about what he felt for Denne. He’d overheard the other males at work talking about how it was with bonding, and he now knew it was all true. If she called on him, for anything, at any time, he was never going to tell her no.

Nineteen minutes later, he was in his uniform of jeans and a hoodie and leaving his room, and the silence out in the living area was once again a relief. He didn’t want to have to explain why he was going out at a dead run, and besides, there was a very good possibility he was throwing off that telltale scent even after he’d soaped himself down thoroughly.

Well, not as thoroughly as he’d cleaned his damn wanker.

No wonder that was the vernacular for the thing.

Out in the corridor, Allhan rushed to the stairs, and then up-and-outed himself through the series of checkpoints until he was exiting the yellow Colonial’s front door. He didn’t even bother to hide his dematerialization, and of course he knew the address of the restaurant. He’d looked it up as soon as he’d gotten back from tossing that kitchen knife into the river for her.

When he re-formed on the roof of Sal’s—because it was the safest option as he didn’t know the layout other than a quick glance at the website—he was relieved to find a parking lot with only one vehicle in it.

A silver truck with black wheels.

Over at the building’s ledge, he jumped down and landed on the snowpack by the rear door. As he tested the handle, the metal panel opened wide—

He scented Denne immediately.

And there she was, stepping out into a corridor.

“Thank you for coming—”

“How could I not—”

There was an intense pause as they both fell silent. Then they rushed forward at the same time, their mouths meeting with desperate, fumbling passion. As he kissed her, he had the sense she was drawing him into some kind of office, but it could have been back out into the snow and he wouldn’t have cared. And even after everything that he’d done to himself in the shower, he was instantly ready for her—and going by the gorgeous perfume of her arousal, he knew it was the same for his female.

Back against a desk, paperwork hitting the floor because she shoved it off. There was a clatter, too—a laptop maybe. Or a lamp? Telephone? Who the fuck knew. Who the hell cared.

Clothes were roughly shed, his hoodie and t-shirt tossed into the corner, his jeans undone—and that was when he lost it, and ripped her button-down clear apart, little disks flying everywhere. Her breasts were everything he needed to get to and he worshipped her with his mouth as she contorted her lower body and shoved at her black slacks.

“I’m jammed up,” she muttered as she twisted to the side.

While she attacked the laces on her boots, he went with her and stayed on her nipples, sucking at her, pretzeling himself to keep the contact tight. Finally, there was a resounding thump! and then she was pushing her pants off that one foot.

Back on the desk now, her hands at the front of his jeans. Guiding him. The instant he was inside of her, pure lust took over. The penetration was hard and deep and fast, and they both shouted. He had thought he’d never feel this again, and he wanted to savor the experience, adding more memories to the precious few he had. But his body was live-wire wild, the primal need to mate and mark more powerful than anything in the universe.

While he pounded into her sex, Denne’s nails bit into his bare back to keep her hold on him, especially as he started swinging his hips off the base of his spine so violently that the desk banged against the wall, the sharp metal beat ringing in his ears.

Funny, he didn’t have his headache anymore.

Not even as he clamped his teeth together and strained so much, he had to squeeze his eyes shut or risk having them pop their sockets and hit the concrete behind the desk like tennis balls—

With a hoarse growl, she called out his name, and stiffened from release. And the idea that he had done that to her, given this to her, was all he needed to start orgasming himself.

As he began coming into her, filling her up until she overflowed between her legs, all he thought was how he was right where he needed to be, servicing the female he loved.

Too bad he couldn’t make this a forever.

Denne didn’t give a shit about how hard the desk was under her, or the way her ass squeaked on the fake wood top. She also didn’t care about the laptop she’d shoved off, or the paperwork she’d messed up, or all the reasons that they shouldn’t be doing this.

Never again was she asking for details on the future.

That vow was the only thing she knew. Outside of this male.

Meanwhile, Allhan rode her like a beast, and and the raw, pounding sex was just what she needed. No duty with him. No courtly politeness. No arrangement of stars that might, or might not, be right. This was rank lust and passion, and she was not confused on any level about what they were doing.

As his surging, powerful body locked against her core, and his shaft kicked deep inside her while his come filled her up, everything was crystal clear.

Unfortunately, like all good things, eventually their orgasms slowed to a stop, and then they were just breathing together, their harsh exhales mixing, the still aftermath cooling down the heat.

As she looked up into his face, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You shaved.”

“I did.” He rubbed his jawline and chin against her palm. “I don’t want to scratch you while we… if we…”

“Do the sex?” She smiled, even though pain was just under her surface. “Well, that’s fine, but I would take the beard burn from you anytime.”

His pale blue eyes grew serious. “I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.”

“Me, neither.”

The kiss they shared now was gentle, reverent. A reminder that passion without love was just body parts, a sneeze that offered nothing more than a brief, biological relief.

“Here, I must be crushing you.”

He was, but she liked it and could have stayed right where they were for the rest of the night, him buried deep inside her, his body a living blanket. Except as he shifted off and straightened between her thighs, the real world came back.

“Let me make you something to eat,” she blurted.

She had no fucking clue where that came from, but she wanted to draw this out for as long as she could—partially because she always needed more time with him, but also because she had no fucking idea where to start or what to say to him. And as they both redressed—and she thanked God she always had an extra black work shirt in a drawer—she racked her mind for what she could do at Marco’s stove. It wasn’t until they were walking out into the corridor that she realized she could handle scrambled eggs.

Those gas burners were sure as shit going to wonder why the amateur night, but whatever.

As they emerged into the kitchen proper, Al wandered around, looking at the stainless steel counters and equipment, the professional ovens, the dishwashers.

“I’m not hungry, actually,” he said.

“Me, neither.”

Al turned toward her, and the seriousness in his face was a total contrast to the volcanic need that had distorted his handsome features into a mask of sexual drive. That passion was all gone now.

“What do you need, Denne. Just name it and it’s yours.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Don’t even try. Just tell me what I can do for you.”

Denne broke their eye contact and did some wandering of her own, heading over to the salad prep area. She thought about her vinaigrette ramekin stunt and wondered if that young woman was okay. She hoped that the son was, too. And the human mother. She wished them well, like you would people moving out of town.

Except she was the one who wasn’t going to be coming to Sal’s anymore.

Jesus, had she really decided that?

Yes, she had.

Marco would take care of the place, and no doubt hire one of his family members to be manager. And in another decade, her father could decide who else he wanted to turn things over to—or if it was safe for him to come back here and be the chef. A long-lost “cousin” of the iAm everybody had known fifty years ago.

“Talk to me,” Allhan prompted.

“I need to know something that you may not want to tell me.”

“Go ahead.”

She had spent all day long thinking about what had been on their charts and what everything meant.

And one of the conclusions she’d come to was disturbing.

Except she had to get real about everything, and the place where she was determined to begin was to nail down what she knew for certain about Al. Then she could focus on the rest of what the charts said, and disagreed upon.

“I need to know whether or not you ever killed anybody in your family.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Fucking hell, Allhan thought as Denne’s words landed like bricks on his head. She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d picked up a frying pan off the stove and roundhoused him with the thing. And as he repeated what she’d said couple of times in his mind, like he was a bomb squadder looking for hidden detonators, he heard a weird noise in his ears, a buzzing that came and went with no particular pattern or volume.

After God only knew how long, he pulled his shit together and cleared his throat. “You mind if I ask why you want to know that?”

She started pacing again, going over to a pair of flap doors and staring out the circular windows. “It’s going to sound crazy. Just a heads-up”

Yeah, right. The female had no idea what his life had been like for the last six months.

“Try me.”

There was another long pause. Then he knew by the way she straightened her spine that he was going to get it all. Whatever “it” was.

“My mother is Queen Catra of the Shadows. I am the heir to the throne of the Territory of the s’Hisbe.”

Allhan blinked. Leaned forward on his hips. Tilted his head. “I’m sorry, say what?”

“It is my destiny to rule when my mother passes.” She made a sign over the center of her chest and then glanced up. “May that be far, far into the future.”

Holy… shit. And he’d had the gall to think in his old life he might have been a catch for her?

What an idiot he was.

“It is our custom to do charts of the night skies, to track stars and assess how they relate to the lives we lead and our destinies. This is our tradition, and it has been done for me twice. Right after my birth, but also after my transition ten years ago.” Her eyes traced his face. “That second chart suggested that I must be mated to one of my mother’s advisors and take the throne early to save my parents, and my people.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“Even though… I love you.”

Allhan’s peepers popped back open. As shock reverberated through him, she remained utterly calm and steady, as level as the floor he was standing on.

“I love you, too,” he said immediately.

Yeah, they were waaaaaaay past holding back or worrying about what made any logical sense. Unfortunately, given their situation, the joy and happiness they should have felt did not follow the mutual confession.

“The male I am supposed to mate is my mother’s Tretary. He’s responsible for interpreting the stars, and she asked him to do that reading for me on the night I went through my change. Everything that was foretold was supposed to start when two falling stars crossed on a winter’s evening.”

“When we met,” he breathed.

“That’s right. Except there’s something wrong with my chart. Or at least, I think there might be. I noticed when I went through everything last night.”

Nodding his head, Allhan said softly, “And you asked me my birthdate and time. So you went and looked at my chart, too.”

“I did. It’s an invasion of your privacy—”

“I don’t care. If it’s right, you already know my secrets and how ugly they are. And if it’s wrong, it doesn’t matter anyway, does it.”

“I think it does.”

“So what did mine say.”

“I just need to know. Did you ever kill one of your parents.”

Now he was the one back with the wander, and as he crossed his arms over his chest, he wished he had a better backstory. It also felt, after half a year of lying, very weird not to hide behind a fiction he’d made up.

And yet perhaps he had to look at this all in a different way.

Especially given everything he’d been thinking about during the day: It was possible that there was another way to deal with that lesser.

Something he’d never considered before.

After what surely was an eternity, Allhan faced her. “I killed my father. I beat his head in with a candlestick.”

To Denne’s infinite credit, she didn’t recoil in horror. Then again, she was probably armed and he didn’t even know it. Either that or she knew that he would never, ever hurt her.

Her black eyes went up and down him, as if she were recasting her opinion of him.

“Your sister,” she said softly. “You did it to protect your sister.”

Tears disrupted his vision. “Yes. He had hurt her for years. And then he did something that put us both in mortal danger. I couldn’t… I couldn’t not take care of my family. Which was the two of us, against him. I did what I had to in order to protect Carmen, and to ahvenge what had been done to her as a young.”

“I understand that.” Denne nodded her head gravely. “I love my parents, and if they were in danger, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to defend them. In fact, I’m prepared to mate a male out of duty to make sure they’re safe. If that’s what I must do.”

Allhan closed his eyes briefly. “Thank you for not hating me.”

“How could I, when you’re protecting your blood.” Then she rubbed over her brows like she was trying to manually unjam her thoughts. “And your chart said something else.”

Allhan winced and thought of his planned betrayal of the Brotherhood. “What’s that.”

When her eyes finally returned to his, they softened with a gentle emotion. “You will love one, and only one, female your entire life, however long that is.”

He sucked in a breath. And then his heart started pounding. “Denne, can you answer me something, even if I don’t think I believe any of this?”

“Sure.”

“What did it say about… the future of my family.”

He wanted to know if his sister would be okay. Had to know.

Even if he wasn’t sure he believed in astrology.

Denne grew pensive and then shrugged. “Just that you had a big one. A big family who loved you very much… and that you loved in return.”

Allhan took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “That can’t be right. It’s only my sister and me. We’re all that’s left of our bloodline.”

“Not according to your chart. That’s not what I saw. You were surrounded by people who cared for you.”

He put a trembling hand over his heart. Then he spoke in a shaky voice. “Denne, I need to tell you… everything that’s been going on for me.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

Vishous was at his desk in his fishbowl office when the call came in to his cell. As he looked at who it was, he snatched the Samsung.

“You okay?”

At least he knew where Allhan was. The male hadn’t turned off his location ping tonight. He’d been at Sal’s for the last hour and a half, and while that would have been great news under other circumstances, given the little news flash from the Shadows last night, there was no feeling good about anything involving the male and Denne.

“Yeah,” V said as he grabbed for his lighter. “I can come over to the restaurant. Now? Yup, I’ll be there right away, true.”

He was already getting to his feet before he hung up, and he took a whole palmful of smokes with him as he left. Striding out down the aisle between the work station desks, he had the feeling that something was stalking him. Something nasty.

The instinct was still with him as he re-formed out the back of Sal’s, in the parking lot. There were no vehicles around, except for that badass truck he’d seen the night before, and the second he was corporeal, the door opened.

Then again, he’d been the one to install the security cameras and his presence had obviously been anxiously waited for.

Dennesha did the duty with the steel panel, and she stood off to the side to hold things in place. She was not smiling. But in the few times he’d seen her, the female had never seemed particularly happy.

Except for when she’d been with Allhan last night.

The snow squeaked under his shitkickers as he went over to her, and he lit up as he strode along.

“Evening,” he said.

“Hi. I’m D—”

“I know who you are. Where’s our boy?”

Her eyes flared in surprise, but she recovered quickly. “He’s, ah, he’s down in the front of the house. I’m going to just chill here in my office while you two talk.”

“Good deal.”

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and wanted to tell her not to worry, or some shit. He’d never been good at lying, though, and the vibes were way off on all this. The whole fucking thing.

The female looked like she was about to vibrate off the goddamn planet. And not in a good way.

“You mind if I smoke in here?”

“Not at all. Grab one of the dishes and use it as your ashtray if you want.”

“Thanks.”

V strode down the corridor, and when he passed through the kitchen, he did what she’d suggested, snagging a Sal’s branded soup bowl along the way. As he continued walking, he ashed into the thing, the little gray flakes speckling across the red logo.

He shouldered through a pair of flap doors and found himself in the bar area. Everything was dimly lit, the red leather stools all lined up at the counter, the bottles sleeping on the illuminated shelves behind the serving area. On the far side of the room, the dozen banquettes where the VIPs had sat for generations were already set for patrons, and the black-and-white pictures of old-fashioned Caldwell were like windows on the past you could step into.

He found Allhan sitting on the shallow stairs that led down to the closed double doors of the entrance. The male was totally self-contained, his arms wrapped around himself, his knees up to his chest, his head lowered.

V had always imagined him just like this when he’d been abandoned.

And when the male didn’t look up, he abruptly knew that there was more to the whole story. More to the extra phone. More to the location pings that had disappeared.

“Here,” V said as he went over. “Have one of these.”

The hand that came out and took the cigarette trembled. “Th-thank you.”

V did the duty with the Bic, and after Allhan leaned in and inhaled, the coughing that came next was pretty epic.

While the male caught his breath, V put the communal ash bowl down on the red carpeted stairs, and then went across and leaned back against the doors. For some reason, the fact that they could be used for both entrances and exits lingered in his mind as he watched Allhan smoke.

When the male was finally finished, he stabbed out the stump and looked up. Those pale blue eyes were dead, absolutely opaque.

“I lied to you.”

Vishous exhaled and eased out of his lean. The way Allhan shrank away, and lifted his arms as if to fend off blows, was a knee-jerk on the male’s part. Total instinct.

V just did some stabbing of his own in the bowl and then returned to where he’d been. “About what.”

There was a long, long silence after that. And then:

“Everything.”

As Allhan let the word out, he studied Vishous’s face, that harsh, hard face, with its goatee and its tattoos and its diamond eyes. He waited for rage. For accusations. For a physical attack. What he got was… far more chilling.

Nothing changed. There wasn’t even a blink that was out of sequence, no alteration in breathing, no response at all. Which meant that the Brother was so in command of himself, and his resources, and his mind, that nothing could throw him.

It was a reminder that true power came not from outward aggression, but from the inner knowledge that you could fuck someone up with your bare hands and have your heart rate remain the same as before you started.

And in the silent aftermath of Allhan’s confession, the Brother didn’t say anything. Didn’t look away. Didn’t shift even a foot or a finger. Vishous could have been furious or indifferent or thinking about what he was going to have for Last Meal. Who the fuck knew, and Allhan was no expert in negotiations, but he’d heard that whoever spoke first lost.

And they both knew who that was going to be.

“I am the son of—” He ducked his own stare and coughed some more to clear his throat. “I am the son of Chritophe, a member of the glymera who died six months ago. I am the brother of his blooded daughter, Carmen, who is living in a safe house on the Hudson.”

Allhan glanced up. Still no change and no reaction.

“I, ah, I killed my father the night I left my family house. I tried to send my sister to the male she loved and his bloodline. And afterward, I went to Safe Place and…” He hesitated. “I…”

He couldn’t go any further.

That was when Vishous spoke, and the Brother’s voice, once so familiar, was cold as ice: “Why don’t we skip the narrative and just do the headlines. Am I killing you where you sit right now? Or not. You tell me.” Abruptly, those eyes flicked up over his shoulder. “Do yourself a favor, Dennesha, and go back to your office. Better yet, you should leave altogether. I’ll lock up when I’m through.”

Wrenching around, Allhan nodded his head. “You really should go, Denne.”

“Nope.” She planted her boots by the host stand. “I’m not leaving.”

Now Vishous moved, his weight shifting off the door, his black-gloved hand moving into the pocket of his black leather jacket. “I respect the shit out of your parents, and more than that, there has been peace between the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the s’Hisbe for generations. I have no intention of breaking that track record, but if you get in the way of whatever is about to happen here, I will not hesitate to kill you as well.”

There was a subtle bing! Like a text going out or coming in.

And then a twin pair of guns popped up so fast, you couldn’t track them. One muzzle was pointed at Allhan and the other at Denne, with the Brother focusing on a middle point right between them so his peripheral vision no doubt had them both in focus.

So he could pull those triggers at the same time.

“Did you tell him about your sister, Al,” she said roughly.

“That’s not what he’s going to care about.” Allhan lowered his head again. “It’s the lesser. That’s what he needs to know.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

As iAm rushed down the hallway with his Dunkin’ donuts, some weird sense of being pursued dogged him, even though there was no one and nothing behind him. When he got to his private residence, he entered the code and shoved with his hip.

“Hey, I know you said you didn’t want any—”

He skidded to a halt. His shellan wasn’t where he’d left her, staring off into space on the black sofa, like her head was somewhere in the stars. Literally.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Next stop.”

He was just turning away when he saw the fan of paperwork on the kitchen table. The documents were legal sized, and had most certainly not been there when he’d left. Walking over, he frowned and looked at the title page.

It was a contract for the purchase and sale of real estate. Dated today.

And the name on the seller line was Ton Shisbe.

“What the… hell?” With a feeling of utter disassociation, iAm flipped to the back and looked at the last page. “Fuck.”

Spinning around, he raced out, tearing for the stairs up to the Constellation Room so fast, the damp-soled boots on his feet skidded around the corners. On the way, he passed by all kinds of courtiers, playing pinball with the purple robes, and he was so alarmed, he couldn’t even bother to try to look calm.

Yet for some reason, as he arrived at the door into the dome, he pulled up short and held his breath. He was utterly silent as he slipped into the yawning glass space.

“—what you did,” Catra said from down at the chart room. “You fabricated the reading. You lied, t’On. You lied about everything.”

iAm crept forward, trying to keep his inhales as quiet as he could.

“You honestly think any of this matters,” the Tretary spat. “These fucking charts. This land. This way of life.”

“Yes, I do—who the hell are you?”

The laughter that answered his shellan was right on the edge of crazy. But when t’On answered, he was back in control.

“You do not have to worry about that—”

Catra’s scream shot iAm forward, and he bolted directly across the white circle on the floor. As he jumped through the open jambs of the chart room, the horrific sight of his shellan clutching her stomach tore through him as if he were the one who’d been stabbed.

“Catra!” he yelled.

The Tretary turned, the knife in his right hand bloody, the old-fashioned gun in his left cocked and ready to go.

“Two birds, one stone,” the male said.

And then he shot iAm directly in the chest.

As iAm reeled backwards, the coffee tray he hadn’t realized he still had with him went flying, the lids popping off, the hot liquids going everywhere. He banged into one of the walls of chart boxes, and then slid down to rest beside his beloved, who was sprawled across the black glossy floor.

His heart rate went out of control, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe.

All he could do was reach out and take his shellan’s cold, clammy hand. As her straining eyes sought his own, he realized with horror that the prophecy was coming true. They were both dead… even though Denne was not mating a madman.

The destruction of everything happening just as it was foretold.

The Tretary came over. “Can you believe the Queen just accused me of lying? Well, yes, I ‘fixed’ a few things, but in the end, it’s true. You two do die.”

t’On lowered himself onto his haunches and looked back and forth between them. “I’ll let you in on some other secrets.”

He leaned in and dropped his voice. “Your daughter doesn’t make it out of this alive, either. Oops. Did I just spoil the real ending for you?”

“Gonna… kill you…” Catra snarled.

“No, you’re not. That’s not your destiny, I’m afraid. And Dennesha was never going to mate me. That was just a lie to create chaos and buy myself time, so I could arrange for my own destiny. Oh, and did I not mention that my predecessor was my first kill? You always remember your first above all others, although Your Majesties are going to stick out in my mind.”

t’On’s black eyes rose to the shelves. “The stars were right all along. No one is surviving, at least not here. This way of life is done. The modern world has taken over, and if you don’t participate in it, embrace what it requires, find a new way… well, then it’s just a matter of time before you get claimed by it. What’s the saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. And I’d much rather be looking forward into the future than drowning in the past. In this, you all and I are actually aligned, my stellar acting job to the contrary.”

The male got back to his feet. “And yes, I did sell this land. But it was never going to get me enough, not for the style in which I intend on living. Fortunately, I have been cultivating another source of funds, and everything is coming to a head at just the right time.”

t’On walked over to the exit and laughed.

“Almost like it’s been written in the stars.”

His expression settled into a nasty hatred. “I’ll let the others live and find their way as they do when the humans come and take over. Not your daughter, though. She’s dangerous, that one. I think she’s the type who will hold a grudge about all this.”

He glanced over his shoulder, across the arching, glass expanse.

“And really, who needs to worry about that,” the male said as he turned away and closed the door.

iAm groaned and tried to take out his phone. He didn’t make it.

“Catra,” he whispered hoarsely. “Hang on, stay with me.”

When there was no response, he tried to squeeze her palm, but he had no strength in his own hand.

Just as he was about to lose consciousness, he heard heavy footfalls pounding inside of the dome. Undoubtedly, t’On had thought better of leaving anyone breathing.

He was coming back to finish the job.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Standing in the entry foyer of Sal’s, Vishous kept his eyes straight ahead, triangulating both Allhan and Denne. At the same time, his instincts were penetrating deep into the restaurant. Hundreds of years of fighting experience came to him without asking or ordering, every creak in the facility, each breath the two across from him took, all the different scents that permeated the air, weaving into his mind.

The three of them were alone. For now.

“Yeah,” he said in a low voice. “That’s what I want to hear about. The lesser.”

Allhan cleared his throat. “My father was approached by a slayer some months before he died—”

“Before you murdered him,” V interjected calmly.

“Y-yes. Yes. That’s right.” The male swallowed hard. “The deal that was struck was for my sire to provide the locations of the Audience House and where the King and the Brotherhood live to the enemy in exchange for a fortune.”

“So it can try and kill us all.”

Allhan’s eyes closed. “Yes.”

V was done with the fucking waiting. “So you kill Daddy and decide to make the money yourself, right? If I remember correctly, your sire was having financial difficulties. A case was brought to the King by investors who alleged he’d cheated them out of millions and Wrath required your father to pay everything back. It wiped him out.”

“I didn’t know… why the money dried up. But I guess… that was the reason.”

“And after you stepped into the loafers of your sire, you moved in with us.”

At that moment, Z and Rhage materialized behind Denne. When they nodded in sync, V was aware of a subtle uncoiling. Thanks to the text he’d sent out just before he’d palmed up his guns, the Wheel and the Audience House were both on Level I lockdown, with nobody going in or out.

“Your intent,” V continued, “was to turn over the address of the First Family and the Black Dagger Brotherhood and their families to the enemy.”

“That was my plan, yes,” Allhan admitted. “But in the end I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it. I had… stupid ideas. I was too smart and too dumb at the same time. You can check both my phones—”

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” Rhage interjected in a deep voice.

Allhan and Denne both jumped and twisted around to the new arrivals on scene. When the male turned back, he looked like he was about to hyperventilate.

“She’s not involved in this,” he said. “Let her go. She didn’t know a thing, she doesn’t know anything. And you can look in all my computers, too. In every dealing I had with the lesser, she’s never been involved.”

V kept his eyes right where they were on the middle ground, even though his brothers were on backup. “So what made you decide to come forward with all this now.”

“You told me I wasn’t alone.” Allhan’s voice cracked. “Last night, you told me that you would help me. I have been alone all my life, and I hated my father. And I did kill him and I do not regret it for everything he did.”

“Yeah, the temerity of him losing all your future inheritance—”

“He raped my sister when she was a young. For years.”

At that, V shifted his glance in the male’s direction. The fury in those pale blue eyes could have lit the world on fire.

“It started when she was two years old, and nobody did a fucking thing. So I do not regret what I did to him at all. And I kept dealing with the lesser because it threatened to kill her. All I could do was pray that it didn’t find her—but it did. It took it a while… but it did.”

Allhan covered his face with his hands and went full babble. “Those males outside the club all died because of me. The lesser tortured those two to try to find Carmen. And yet I knew I couldn’t give the slayer what it wanted. I couldn’t… betray the only people who ever cared about me. But I didn’t know what to do and the enemy got impatient. It’s all my fault.”

A shudder went through the male and he dropped his arms in defeat. “Kill me now. I know that’s what I deserve. I accept the punishment—just… can you please help my sister? Get her out of that glass house on the river. The lesser’s been sending me pictures of her there for the last couple of nights. She’s not safe, and she’s totally innocent. Please, let Denne go and save my sister, Carmen. I deserve everything else you do to me.”

As Allhan lowered his head again, Vishous inhaled and tested the air for scents of stress and falsity. Through Wrath was the real expert at sniffing shit up, he didn’t catch any duplicity. At all.

Nodding at Rhage and Z, he waited until the brothers came forward so they were immediately behind the male and female.

Then V put one of his guns away and held out his gloved hand. “Give me both your phones.”

As Allhan struggled to get into the pockets of his hoodie, he knew without a doubt that if he made one wrong move, he was going to get his head blown off.

The phones all but spilled out of his hands, and as they bounced down the stairs, Vishous put his other gun away and bent to pick them up. The Brother was quick about getting into the official one.

“The password for the burner is fourtwosixnine,” Allhan said.

Time seemed to stop, but only at Sal’s. He was very aware that it was continuing to pass elsewhere in Caldwell. That the lesser was a boiling pot that wasn’t going to stay lidded for much longer. That his sister was all alone.

“Please, just save Carmen,” he repeated numbly. “Kill me here, or out back, or down by the river, but let Denne go and save my—”

Without warning, Denne burst forward and took out her own gun, pointing it at Vishous. “No! You’re not going to kill him! He didn’t do anything—”

“Put that away,” Allhan hissed as he jumped to his feet. “You’re going to get us killed—”

“No, she’s not.” Vishous didn’t bother looking up from the phone, like the only thing he was facing was a whisk from the kitchen. “Long as her weapon doesn’t get discharged. If you do pull that trigger, neither one of you is making it out of this alive—which would be pretty fucking stupid considering these texts do seem to corroborate what you’re saying.”

Those diamond eyes lifted and focused on Denne. “Put down your gun.”

“No, you’re not taking him,” she snarled. “You’re not killing him, I love him!”

The scent of her tears became overwhelming to Allhan, and he put his arms around her. As she collapsed into his chest, he slipped the gun from her hold and tossed it over at Vishous’s feet. Then he just closed his eyes and held his female.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, and he was only vaguely aware that there were conversations being conducted around them, and other people arriving.

If he’d thought their goodbye had been set in stone the night before, it was nothing like this. He was going to be taken out back by the Brotherhood, as he should be, and even though death was going to be an ice-cold bath of an absolute void—or whatever Dhunhd was like—in a way, it was a tremendous relief to have it all out. Off his chest. Over and done with.

He truly had been eaten alive by the lies.

“—han? Allhan.”

He came to and discovered that Vishous had come over to them. The Brother’s face was intense, but that strange frozen mask was gone.

“Tell us where your sister lives.”

“What?” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear right—”

“Tell us where your sister lives. We gotta move quick.”

Repositioning Denne under his arm, he whispered, “It’s the glass house, down on a point, across the river from where the cops discovered the dead human two days ago.”

“That’s Assail’s old crib,” somebody said off to the side.

As Allhan’s brain came back online more fully, he realized that there were many members of the Brotherhood around them. No guns, though. The guns had all been put away.

“We’re going there right now,” Vishous announced.

Before the Brother could turn to leave, Allhan reached out and grabbed for the warrior’s arm. “Wait… what about me? What are you going to do… with me?”

Those diamond eyes searched his face. Then the burner phone was front and center before Allhan’s face.

“This just came through from the enemy.”

The image was of Carmen, tied up and beaten in the middle of the glass house’s perfectly decorated living room. And there was another face in the photograph, a dark one with eyes like dead black marbles, and a smile that promised a wealth of suffering.

“Wait,” Denne said. “Let me see that.”

She tilted the phone screen to herself. “What the hell is t’On doing with your sister?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Fuck that.

As the Brotherhood made all kinds of plans, Denne excused herself to go to the bathroom, and because no one expected her to leave without them, none of the males went with her. And what do you know, she just ghosted out and away, heading back to the clearing on the river’s shore, back to where it all started.

Looking across at the glass house, she thought of the twin falling stars.

She didn’t need a chart of the heavens, or some interpretation thereof, to tell her what that rare phenomenon had been about.

One star had been her. One star had been Allhan.

And their destinies had crossed, forever.

The fate they shared was about all the things he had done, and all the ways she had been ignoring her calling, their paths of overt and covert destruction different sides of the same bad coin, him flaming out, her never kindling.

And now she knew the facts without knowing the details yet.

Her chart had been doctored. The Tretary had lied about his true role in everything. And unless she dealt with him right now, her parents were going to die and the s’Hisbe would be destroyed.

It was all up to her.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath.

Denne traveled across the sluggish winter river as a rolling shadow, and when she re-formed, it was off to the side of the house. t’On wasn’t stupid. He had pulled the drapes of the living room so she wasn’t sure how to infiltrate—

“Really,” a dry voice said behind her. “You didn’t think we were going to notice you snuck out the back.”

She turned around and glared at Vishous, even though he was a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. “This is my business. I will handle it—”

“That’s a lesser—”

“No, that’s my mother’s Tretary. I don’t know what t’On has been pretending to be, what sleights of hand he’s been fucking with, but if that’s who Allhan has been dealing with, this is not in the purview of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. This is Shadow business, and I will handle it or you will start a war between your kind and mine.”

As the Brother’s hard face was bathed in green light, she knew a calming purpose unlike any she had ever felt before.

But no surprise, he was not prepared to back down.

“That’s a member of our aristocracy being held prisoner in there,” Vishous growled. “So no, it’s not just about you—”

“And she’s my sister.”

As Al appeared beside Vishous, the Brother grabbed the male by the front of the hoodie. “I told you to stay—”

“This is all my fault—”

“So don’t make it worse, asshole.”

Abruptly, Al looked at her. “And you need to go home—”

“Fuck the both of you,” Denne announced. “Try to make me leave.”

Then everybody went quiet as more of the Brotherhood and fighters arrived on scene, the males and females coming out of the tree line, ghosts who were heavily weaponized.

“Get me into the house,” Denne said as she reached out and yanked one of Vishous’s black daggers from his chest holster. “He is mine to kill.”

For once, the Brother seemed flabbergasted. “I can sentence you to death for handling that blade.”

“So kill me now, if you’re going to.” She leaned into him. “Or get me the fuck into that house.”

Vishous loomed over her, his lip peeling off his fangs. “Don’t make me do this to you—”

A tall, broad-shouldered male with a military haircut that had a white streak in front stepped into the conflict.

“Stop.” He put his hand up to silence everyone. “Dennesha, your parents have been gravely injured—”

As the world started to spin, Al put his arm around her and kept her on her feet.

“—but your uncle is with them. He called Doc Jane in for help. She’s already on scene and doing what she can to stabilize them. Manny’s on his way, and the Shadow healers have been summoned. You can go now, and be with them—”

Blindly, she grabbed for Al’s hand and squeezed so hard, she felt his bones merge with her own. “What. Wait… who…”

“Your mother said it was the Tretary.”

She released her breath in a long, slow exhale of vengeance.

“I’m not leaving here,” she growled as she tried to control her emotions. “I am supposed to kill him. I am supposed to be here. This is what my destiny has always been. I am going to kill him myself.”

There was only a moment’s hesitation.

And then Vishous shoved his arm into his jacket and came out with a gun. “Take this as well. It’s fully loaded. And I’ll get you into the fucking house.”

As the words rippled through the assembled Brothers and fighters, Denne accepted the weapon and looked into Al’s eyes.

“I’m going in, too,” he said grimly. “That’s still my sister.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Standing in the lee of the glass house, Allhan felt the power of the Black Dagger Brotherhood in a way he’d never before. It wasn’t just that they were deadly. It wasn’t just the weapons. It was the sheer number of them and their allies, and the fact that there was not a weak link among the group. As they set up positions and moved with hand signals clearly long shared, Vishous worked at infiltrating the security system and electrical field, while members of the Band of Bastards covered the roof, and Butch rolled up on scene in a blacked-out armored van.

Allhan would have felt good about things.

If his sister’s life wasn’t on the line.

And Denne wasn’t insisting on going in.

But neither of those was his choice. What was his choice was to remain focused on the job at hand—and that was getting Carmen out alive and making sure Denne was okay.

Accordingly, answers to all his questions were going to have to wait.

“All right,” Vishous announced. “I’m in. Alarm is off.”

“Let me text him,” Allhan said. “I’ll tell him I’m coming alone and I have what he wants. It will distract him.”

Then he looked Vishous right in the eye. “And you can get Carmen, right? If I’m distracting him—”

A familiar hand landed on his shoulder, and diamond eyes met his own. In the heartbeat of silence between them, he knew an acceptance he didn’t understand, and couldn’t comprehend. But it was there. He could feel it in the weight of that palm.

“Don’t do anything that’ll get you hurt, son,” was all the Brother said.

Before he could think better of it, he grabbed on to the male who had loved him as a father should have. And when the embrace was returned, he felt the easing of forgiveness in his soul. There were many things he shouldn’t have done, but he knew that there had been one thing that he’d gotten right.

He’d told the truth and asked for help.

As he stepped back, he looked to Denne. “I love you.”

“Be careful.” She kissed him with an intensity that told him they both knew this could be goodbye. “I love you, too.”

And suddenly, he was calm.

The text he sent was short and sweet, and as it was going through, he walked away from the warriors, stepping free of the tree line and hooking up with one of the woodland paths that continued around to the street side of the glass house.

The front door was wide open.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the other homes were far off and closed down for the winter. This was good. He’d already had enough of police copters.

“I’m unarmed,” he shouted as he put his hands up over his head. “I’m alone.”

When there was no response, he walked closer. “Hello? I have what you want. But if you kill her—”

“You’ll do what.”

The voice was hard to pinpoint—then again, he didn’t know the house’s layout, and with all the glass, acoustics could be influenced in different ways.

Just as they had in his father’s conservatory. With that piano facing into all those panes.

As he entered the house, he stopped and flared his nostrils. He smelled floor polish, window cleaner… and his sister’s blood. Why hadn’t he noticed that the night the slayer had come to his mansion… there had been no smell. Then again, he had only heard whispers of the baby powder stench.

It had just been that dark figure in the doorway.

Who had called himself a lesser.

Who had lied.

And then in the alley outside of Bathe… so much blood, but only that of vampires. They’d all just assumed that the attack had been very clean.

Allhan refocused.

“If you hurt her, you don’t get what you want,” he called out as he glanced at the white tile and the white walls with the gray paintings of the river in all seasons. There was a mirror over to the left, and he looked into it. The reflection showed him what was around the corner, and he angled himself until he could see into the living room.

In the middle of the white and gray expanse, his sister was tied to a white, straight-backed chair. Her head was lolling on her shoulders, and bright red blood dripped onto her winter-white Chanel jacket.

“Carmen,” he whispered. More loudly, he said, “I’ve come alone—”

“Liar.”

As he wheeled around, he heard the first of the gunshots outside. But he didn’t have much time to think about that.

The male he had been negotiating with for the last six months was right behind him, and he had a gun.

Which went off, right in Allhan’s face.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Denne triangulated her approach through one of the sliding glass doors in the darkened kitchen. As she passed through the pane and then moved through the tiled space, cutting around stainless steel appliances and countertops, she thought of when she’d first looked inside this house. It had been a lifetime ago.

And the distance back to that first night got even farther as she looked down the river side of the structure into a gray and white living room. A female with blond hair and well-tailored white clothing was tied to a chair—

As guns started going off outside, Denne had to steel herself not to lose focus, especially because she knew what was happening. She had warned the Brotherhood about t’On astro-projecting and it wasn’t hard to figure out that images of him had just propagated all over the property, trying to distract the fighters—

A gunshot rang out close by, the pop loud enough to hurt her ears.

She ran without thinking into a darkened hall.

And saw Allhan duck just as he was shot at. In response, he dove forward to tackle the male in front of him, but it was just an image. Nothing real. He landed hard on the tile floor, and scrambled to get back on his feet.

“Hello, Denne.”

Click.

The sound of an old-fashioned gun hammer getting pulled back was right next to her ear.

“I have a gun,” she said to t’On without turning her head.

“Do you. How romantic.” There was an evil chuckle. “It’s like we were meant to be together.”

Out in the wintry darkness, bursts of light from the discharge of bullets were like fucked-up fireflies running all the way from the landscaped lawn down to the shoreline. At the same time, Allhan was banging into things inside, crashing into lamps and mirrors as he fought with holograms and chased ghosts.

“Why did you do it,” she asked.

She didn’t give a shit as to the whys. She needed to get ready to spin around and put a bullet of her own into the male’s skull. Or maybe she’d use the dagger.

“Money,” t’On said in a bored tone. “I hate to be so unoriginal, but it’s only ever about money in this modern era, and I’m not going to get left behind. I’m going to make sure I have plenty of it.”

“I thought you valued our traditions, that you disapproved of the way my mother was opening up the Territory to the human side, to the vampires in Caldwell.”

“Lies are so handy,” he drawled. “And I’m very good at them. I even made those civilians I killed and tortured think they smelled lesser.”

“So what was next, after you got the intel. Were you going to sell the Brotherhood’s address to the Lessening Society, or something?”

“I already have the deal negotiated.”

“Well, you don’t have the information, so how’s that going to work—”

She spun around and led with the black dagger. But t’On was too fast for her, lithely jumping out of the way as he pulled his trigger.

In a flash, Denne dropped to the floor and rolled, taking cover behind an island that had a cooktop on it.

“I can scent him on you,” t’On sneered. “What a coincidence. You being unfaithful to me with the very vampire I was working with.”

And then t’On’s voice bloomed behind her. “However did you two meet. It could only be because of fate, right? Otherwise, who would believe it.”

Swinging the muzzle up, she squeezed off some rounds and blew apart the glass door she’d come through. As cold air rushed in, the apparition of t’On disappeared.

Just as she heard a scream from the living room.

Talk about tits up.

Vishous tracked the figure of a male in black through the trees. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem. The trouble was… there were, like, twenty of them… and the biggest risk to this scene was friendly fire. He didn’t want to shoot one of his brothers or any of the other fighters, and holy hell, that Shadow really knew what the fuck he was doing.

Laser sights were all over the pines and on the paths that snaked around the property, and those bullets that went flying were carefully discharged—but never, ever hit the target. It was like they were chasing holograms away—

A brilliant shattering of glass lit off up at the house, some kind of gunfight going down. And it was as he looked through the newly opened goddamned door that he saw Allhan stumble into view for a split second and disappear out of sight.

Denne was in there because of her parents.

Allhan was in there because of his sister.

Goddamn, V was going in there…

Because of his son.

Between one blink and the next, he dematerialized in through the shattered pane, and continued past the kitchen and directly into the living room.

The image of a Shadow standing over Allhan with a gun pointed at the male’s head sprung V into action. With a primordial roar, he rushed across furniture, jumping off couches and chairs, knocking over art and lamps, leading with his gun. But he couldn’t pull the trigger and risk collateral casualties. So he went with the dagger he had left.

He swiped at the image in front of him, and spun around to find one in his wake, and then he dodged and weaved at a kaleidoscope of flickering 3-D representations of that Shadow. But at least he gave Allhan a chance to crawl over to his sister.

And start undoing her bindings.

Had he been hit?

Allhan didn’t know and didn’t care. He was flat on the carpet at his sister’s feet, loosening the ropes at her ankles with clumsy hands. Chaos was all around, inside and out. And if he had ever wanted to know what it was like to be at war, he now knew, and it wasn’t what he’d thought. Not at all.

There was nothing heroic or exciting about anything. It was like riding a wave toward a rocky shore. You knew the impact was coming, and you did what you could to keep from drowning, but the hard hit was unavoidable—and you knew that because everybody else was getting body-slammed—

“Allhan…”

The whisper of his name stopped even the bullets in midair for a split second, and he looked up to meet his sister’s eyes. They were bloodshot and the bruising on her face was already swelling, distorting her beauty.

“You came for me,” she said in a voice that cracked.

Another bullet sizzled by them and they both ducked.

“Always,” he vowed. “You’re my sister.”

That was it for the talking. And as soon as he got one of her hands free, she helped the cause, after which she was on the floor and he was sheltering her with his body.

Just as he looked for an escape route, there was another shattering of glass and the whole straightaway that faced the Hudson broke out of its enormous frame in a shimmer of shards. As the cold air barreled in, he ducked another bullet.

“Can you walk?”

“I don’t know,” she gasped.

He glanced around, hoping to see Denne—

There she was. In the doorway to the kitchen, frantically scrambling for cover as she clearly ran out of ammo in a gunfight. Ditching the firearm, she two-handed the black dagger she’d taken from Vishous, and as if Allhan had called her name, she glanced over.

There was blood on her face, in her hair, but he couldn’t figure out how badly she was injured.

As their eyes met, she nodded at the billowing drapes and mouthed, Go.

And that was when Vishous jumped in between them.

“Allhan!” the Brother yelled as he threw a gun.

Going on instincts he shouldn’t possess, Allhan snatched the autoloader out of the air, and knew that Vishous was giving him the only chance he was going to get. And even though it killed him to leave Denne, as she jumped into the fray with the Brother, she was deadly fast with the knife, clearly trained and in a far better situation to fight than he was with his sister.

“On three, run for the porch.” He locked eyes with Carmen. “One. Two. Three—”

They bolted for it, crouching low, dodging broken lamps and sideways furniture.

And bullets.

When they got out onto the porch that faced the river, he didn’t hesitate and neither did his sister. They leaped and went airborne down the descent to the water.

The brief weightlessness was an odd comfort.

The way they landed on the snowy embankment far below was not.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

It was a relief to see out of the corner of Denne’s eye that Allhan was out of the house with his sister. She saw them go flying over the railing, and knew, though there were images of t’On out there, the real one, the one who could actually kill, was somewhere inside.

The Tretary was not leaving without her.

As Denne and Vishous traded stabs and jabs with the blur of t’Ons, she was aware she could create a confusion herself by splitting and projecting her own form, but there was no chance to calm down and do the trick. She was deep in the fighting, eyes rolling around the busted-up living room, her body torquing this way and that—

A bullet caught her in the shoulder.

And that gave the real t’On’s position away: He was in the dark hall off the kitchen.

Abruptly, she stopped in the midst of the violent chaos and faced him.

Between one blink and the next, she knew what to do. She grabbed the front of Vishous’s jacket and shoved him so hard, his heavy body fell into a backward stumble—and before he could recover his balance, she raced after him and grabbed him again. Pushed him again.

Grabbed him one last time.

The third and final punch to the great Brother’s chest broke the railing and took him off the porch. As he barked a curse at her while falling into thin air, she didn’t wait to see where he landed.

Racing back to the kitchen, she jumped behind the island and settled down. With her breath pumping out of her, the only thing she could smell was her own blood mixed with gunpowder.

She might not have learned how to cook at Sal’s after all these years.

But she sure as shit knew what gas stoves did.

Stretching her arm over her head, she cranked every single gas burner on.

Then she abruptly stood and whistled between her teeth so loudly her ears rang.

t’On appeared a pounding heartbeat later, but he was smart. He took cover behind the jamb of the archway in from the hall.

“Tell them to leave the house,” she ordered. “And you can have me.”

“I can have you now.”

“No. You can’t. The Brotherhood will die to protect me.”

“You’re not that important.”

The hell she wasn’t.

If Allhan and I live through this, I’m going to be a member of the fucking family, she thought.

“I am of royal blood.” She smiled at him coldly. “But I don’t expect you to know what that means.”

The nasty expression on his face was exactly what she wanted: “I’m going to make you suffer.”

She took a step back, put her hands up, and lied: “I have a loaded gun on me. If you tell them to get out of the house, I’ll put it down and you can take me. But you have to order them to leave.”

She’d already run out of bullets.

“Why would you sacrifice yourself for a bunch of mere vampires.”

“Because I’m interested in a helluva lot more than money. Another thing you wouldn’t know about.”

She took a second step back.

“Stop,” he ordered her as he kept his own gun up and steady. “If you try to jump, I’ll shoot you and I don’t miss.”

“I’ll unarm myself and I won’t run. Just tell them to get out of the house. All of you, all over the property, tell them to go or you’ll kill me. They’ll listen to the yous.”

Fuck, he wasn’t going to do it.

Except then she heard, everywhere, as if in stereo: “I have her. You will leave or she will die.”

Denne swallowed through a tight throat. “Now count down from five. Otherwise they won’t believe you.”

t’On’s black eyes shifted around. But he was so smart. He stayed behind the jamb while, out in the living room, images of him paraded around with the very gun he had in his palms.

“You got this,” she whispered to herself.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” t’On said in an evil tone. Then more loudly, and in that weird stereo, he continued, “Five… four… three… two… one—”

At the last second, she flicked the Bic she had taken out of Vishous’s pocket and tossed it at the stovetop. As a wall of flame burst up between them, she took two running jumps—

And flew.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

As the countdown began, and the eerie voice of the Shadow permeated the landscape, Allhan sat up in the bushes by the river, intending to go back up there and get his female. But Vishous landed on him before he had a chance, the Brother’s weight hitting him like a boulder.

“No,” Vishous said as he held things in place, “She’s… working something up there. Something’s about to—”

“—two… one,” the Shadow’s images parroted all around.

The explosion was like a fiery meteor had obliterated the house—except that the burst of flames came from within. And Allhan had a horrible thought that Denne had been incinerated, except then he looked up to the porch.

Backlit by the orange and yellow fireball, the female he loved with everything in him went airborne off the porch, and not only that, she was coming right for him. Bouncing in the snow as she hit the embankment, she tumbled down toward the shore.

Which was great, because her clothes were on fire.

Allhan jumped to his feet and went catcher’s-mitt on her, grabbing his female before she shot all the way into the icy Hudson. Well, not really grabbing her, more like tangling into her. Their bodies melded, all arms and legs together as he was caught by her momentum and carried away.

He saved them by slapping a hand on a branch and stopping them two feet from the river.

Panting, his. Wheezing, hers.

And then… Denne started laughing. There was a crazy edge to the sound, but didn’t he jump right in with her. The next thing he knew, they were kissing, and she tasted of her blood and gunpowder and ashes, and all that was okay with him.

Meanwhile, up above, the glass house was a five-alarm fire that owned the night’s horizon.

Except what about—

Something landed next to them in the snow and bounced a couple of times. As they both turned to whatever it was—

“Oh, my God—”

“Holy shit—”

The Shadow’s head was face-up and dead-eyed at the night sky, the gristle of the neck a glossy show of anatomy, the mouth wide open as if he’d been screaming as his skull had been blown off the top of his spine.

“Allhan! Allhan, I’m coming!”

But his sister was not the one who got to them first. Vishous arrived before Carmen did, and the Brother’s eyes went over both of them. Behind him, she was waving her arms to stay upright in in her high-heeled shoes as she made her way through the snow from where she’d landed.

Allhan immediately looked at what was left of t’On. “Crap, my sister can’t see that—”

Denne sat up. “I’ll get it—”

Vishous took a step forward, drew back his opposite shitkicker, and soccer’d the head right into the only part of the river that wasn’t iced over.

“That was very impressive,” Denne said as the splash faded.

“I was a Messi fan years ago, true?” The Brother put his hand in his jacket and took out a bent hand-rolled. “You two okay?”

“Yes,” Allhan said. “Oh, I’d like to properly introduce you to the love of my life, Denne.”

Vishous put the off-kilter coffin nail between his front teeth and smiled. “You’re a pretty smart male, you know that. You have chosen wisely.”

Allhan leaned in for another kiss, and they were just breaking the contact as Carmen arrived.

“Carmen, this is Denne. Denne, this is my sister.”

“Hi.” Denne scrubbed her palm on her smoke-stained button-down and offered a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

Smiling back, Carmen inclined her head graciously, as if they were at a cocktail party. “Likewise, I’m sure.”

Meanwhile, Vishous started patting every pocket he had. “Where the hell’s my lighter—”

“Oh.” Denne winced. “Sorry about that. I borrowed your Bic when I shoved you off the porch. I needed something to light that fire with.”

As Brothers and fighters started appearing all around, Vishous glared at the the fireball above them. “Borrowed? Young lady, let me teach you some manners. If you’re going to use something of somebody’s, you have to return it—”

“Wait, wait, wait!”

She scrambled through the snow a couple of feet over and came back with a burning stick. “Here, this’ll work fine.”

As she stuck it out, Vishous smiled again and leaned down to the flame. When the cigarette came to life, he exhaled and inclined his head.

“Allhan, she really is a keeper. You have my blessing.”

With a feeling of utter gratitude, he looked at the only female he was ever going to love. Then he choked up, not just because of what he was going to say, but who he was saying it to.

“I couldn’t agree more… Father.”

EPILOGUE

Denne walked into a hospital room that was at once perfectly ordinary and utterly extraordinary. The former was because the four walls and a ceiling were pretty standard issue: There was all kinds of medical equipment punctuating the space, and a wide-doored bathroom off in the corner, and a pale tiled floor that was cleaned to a dinner plate standard. What was a little unusual was that a second bed had been rolled in, and parked parallel next to the first.

And that was part and parcel of what was extraordinary.

She was quiet as she tiptoed in, the concert of beeping from the monitors her metronome, her eyes tearing up so much that she had to brush them with the backs of her hands. When she was standing in between the patients, she looked to her mother first and was not surprised to find that the Shadow Queen had her head turned to the right.

So that even though her eyes were closed, she was facing her mate.

iAm was, of course, in exactly the same position on his own pillow.

Denne glanced at all their vitals readouts, the screens like little electronic thought balloons offering commentary on their most critical bodily functions. No alarms were going off, and she measured the trailing heart graphs as if she had a fucking clue what she was looking at.

All the numbers scared her, although that was her mood rather than whatever was going on. Was their oxygen 120? And their heart rate 72?

Maybe that was their blood pressure—

“Denne…?”

Turning toward her mother’s voice in shock, Denne put her arms out and sank into her thighs. As if the female was going to spontaneously thrash herself off the bed and onto the floor, crashing like a mirror dropped on concrete.

“Mama?”

By some absolute miracle, those beautiful black eyes were not only open, they were focused. “Are you… okay…”

Snapping back from the wave of panic, Denne rushed over and took the Queen’s hand. “I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”

Well, that was a little bit of an overstatement. She had a limp, and some low-level burns from where the explosion had toasted her back. But compared to being shot or stabbed? She was ready to run a marathon.

On that note, she glanced down at the Queen’s stomach area, and felt so much rage, she wanted to kill t’On all over again. From what she’d been told, the operation that had saved Catra’s life had been a nick-of-time kind of thing, performed in the dome, on that black glossy floor. A healer named Jane—who she had later learned was Al’s wonderful mahmen—had been assisted by a nurse named Ehlena. Together, the females had somehow managed to repair the damage done by the stabbing.

“Are you in pain?” Denne asked. “Should I get Doc Jane?”

She was completely unsurprised as her mother’s eyes shot to the right. “Is your father…”

“He’s going to pull through—the doctors said he was very lucky.” If you could consider being shot in the fucking chest winning a scratch-off. “The bullet punctured his lung, but missed his heart and any big arteries or veins.”

The relief the Queen felt immediately registered on her monitor, some numbers dipping down, others going up, the little graph thing tracking the heart rate easing until there was a full inch between the steady peaks.

“It was… t’On,” Catra said roughly. “All along.”

“I know,” Denne gritted.

“Your father… found papers left in our quarters. He was selling all our land… to humans. He came looking to kill us…”

“Shh.” Denne leaned in and stroked a tear from her mother’s cheek. “There’s time to talk later. Just rest now—”

“What did you do to him.”

That voice was commanding now, the eyes very direct in a way that belied the fact that the Queen was hooked up to IVs and recovering from a very serious knife wound. And Denne instantly regressed to being a young again, proof, she supposed, that you were every age you’d ever been—and when a parent gave you that I’m-not-messing-around routine, your inner five-year-old still came to attention.

And as the demand lingered between them, she thought back to the young woman in the blue silk dress and realized something about herself: She was a protector and a defender by nature, and while that resonated in her soul, it was one more connection she was finding to the world around her.

She kept this up and she was going to have quite a meaningful fucking life, wasn’t she.

“I took care of it, Mama.” She squeezed the hand that was so much like her own. “That’s all you need to know.”

She’d also turned a perfectly nice glass mansion on the Hudson River into a fireball, but details, details. She could only imagine what the human media was saying about what had happened down by the waterway.

Directly across from where they’d found that dead two-bit gangster.

Conspiracy theorists on the internet were probably going to have a field day, even though they wouldn’t come close to the truth, would they.

But sure as shit, she was going to watch the Netflix documentary when it came out.

Catra shook her head slowly. “You shouldn’t have done that—”

“No one… could have stopped her.”

Denne pulled another torso twist, and felt a fresh wave of relief—that promptly escorted in the kind of shaky aftermath that happened when a semi near-missed you on the highway.

iAm was awake, too, and as soon as he looked at his shellan and his daughter, he started trying to get up. This sent his monitor into a tailspin, all kinds of flashing and beeping going haywire.

“Whoa, whoa—” Denne rushed around and carefully eased his shoulders back down on the bed. “Easy, you’re okay.”

“Worried… about the two… of you…”

Her father’s eyes closed and his face tightened with pain. But neither lasted. As the alarms quieted, his body was clearly able to re-regulate quickly. Good thing, because her next move was going to be running out of the room and screaming for a doctor.

Leaning over him, Denne carefully draped herself across his chest. As she hugged her father like he was fragile, he managed to lift his arms enough to cup her elbows. From what she understood from the doctors, both her parents were going to make a full recovery, but she was not confused. Without what the Brotherhood’s healers had done, she would have lost them—

Behind her, the door opened with a burst.

“Uncle Trez,” she said with a smile. “Look who’s awake.”

Her father’s brother came rushing in, filling the space with his presence. And there was someone else with him—

“Aunt Therese!” Riding a wave of pure happiness, Denne got up and went to the female. “You came!”

So night must have fallen.

As they embraced, she caught a glimpse over Therese’s shoulder at the enormous male out in the corridor. s’Ex, the Queen’s executioner, was leaning back against the concrete wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his brows down on his gleaming black eyes. Dressed in a black robe, and with his white tattoos covered, he looked ready to fight, even though there were no immediate threats anywhere around him.

And she dimly reflected that there were plenty of weapons on under those folds. It was such a testament to what the Black Dagger Brotherhood thought of him and the Shadows as a whole that the executioner was allowed to bear them here in this underground facility.

s’Ex didn’t return her smile.

“They’re awake,” Denne said to him as she held the door open with her foot. Like he might not have heard, though.

s’Ex merely inclined his regal head in acknowledgment of her words. And even so, as she turned back to the reunion that was going on at the hospital beds, she glanced at him one more time.

His eyes had shifted to the royal patients. As a brief flare of pain tightened his stoic features, that was when she knew he wasn’t going to leave Caldwell. He’d been out west with her aunt and uncle since they’d moved, but that was clearly going to change.

After murmuring to everybody, she slipped from the room, and waited until the door shut. “This is not your fault.”

As that hard stare returned to her, she would have taken a step away if she weren’t already against the heavy panel that had just closed.

Not that s’Ex would ever harm her. It was more the intensity of the male.

“You should go back inside,” he said in his deep, accented voice. “Your parents live for you.”

“And I for them.”

He inclined his head again, obviously just to be polite. And then he went back to staring at the door. The fact that this honorable male was hurting made her fury at t’On spike all over again. There was nothing she could say to s’Ex to make things better, though. And then her attention was captured by something else.

Someone else(s).

Farther down the hallway, Al stepped out of what she’d learned was the break room. With him were Doc Jane and Vishous, and the three of them were in some kind of conversation, their heads forming a knot as the Brother took two cigarettes out of the inside of the leather jacket he had on. As he passed one to Al, Al brought forward a red Bic lighter and flicked up a flame.

He lit his father’s first, and then his own.

It was as he exhaled that he glanced her way. When his eyes flared as if he were surprised she was outside the room, she gave him two thumbs up.

“They’re awake,” she announced.

The trio sped up and Al was the first to reach her. As he gathered her into his arms, she took a deep breath. Turkish tobacco. The dark spices of his bonding for her. The faint whiff of the shampoo he’d used in the locker room and the aftershave he’d borrowed from his father.

As they eased back, his pale blue eyes traveled around her face like he was memorizing what she looked like yet again. In reality, he was probably just checking to make sure she was all right.

The answer was yes, she was.

Fucking hell, she was so much better after she’d been able to speak with both her parents.

“Just moments ago,” she said to him as Vishous and Jane went into the room. “They woke up… just now.”

“Thank Lassiter,” Al murmured. “Can I get you anything? Or get anything for them?”

With his words lingering in the air between them, she touched his smoothly shaven face and brushed the outside of his ear. Thinking about how they had met, she had to shake her head. Fate was fucking weird. The good and the bad weaving together through people’s lives, deliberate choices made and chance encounters equally important in the grand scheme of things.

“Have I mentioned I’m sorry I shot you?” she murmured.

His smile was slow. “It’s come up a time or two.”

“Thank God I’m good with a gun.”

“Amen to that.” He kissed her. “You’re good with a lot of things.”

So was he. Taking a deep breath, she stepped fully into him, drawing on the warmth of his body—and his heart. Then she gave him a hearty squeeze.

“How about I introduce you to your in-laws?” she said.

As Denne grinned up at Allhan, he felt a stab of holy-crap hit his stomach. He was beyond grateful that her parents had done so well and now rallied to the point that they were concious. He was also swimming in all kinds of thank-God that the Brotherhood and his father were okay—

Mahmen and Father were all right.

Man, that had such a nice ring to it.

But first-impression land, here he came, he thought.

“I would love to meet them.” When she took his hand, he glanced at his cigarette. “Wait, I should put this out.”

“Oh, it’s okay. They won’t mind—”

“No, I want to put it—”

“Ashtray, sire?” From out of nowhere, Fritz, the butler, appeared, his wrinkled hands cupping a heavy crystal basin. “If you wish?”

“Oh, wow. Thank you so much.”

While he stabbed out the cigarette, the doggen looked like diamonds were being pressed into his palms. Allhan was never going to quite understand the special level of devotion Fritz gave to his masters, but he was not about to argue with it.

The next thing he knew, Denne was leading him through the door, and it was so good to see that her parents’ beds had been raised, and that the Queen and her Prince Consort were smiling at something Vishous had said. They were obviously both weak, but very alert, and he had a thought as he glanced at them, and then his parents along with Denne’s uncle—and aunt, who’d just arrived—that a whole new family unit was being born.

Created by his and Denne’s love.

“Mama, Father,” she said as she stepped into his side. “I would like you to meet Al.”

He took a quick look toward Vishous and Jane, and the pride on both their faces was something he couldn’t quite comprehend. Or maybe it was more like he was still coming to terms with how lucky he was to have them.

Then he was all about the male and female who were smiling up at him.

iAm reached his hand out. “Come here, son. Let me get a good look at you.”

“Sir,” he said as he went over and put his palm into the male’s. “It is an honor. And I want you to know that I love your daughter very, very much.”

Allhan looked over at the Queen. When she, too, moved her hand forward, he found himself tethered between the two most important people in Denne’s life. And with the lump in his throat, he couldn’t find the words for how grateful he was that they’d put his beloved on the planet.

“Welcome to our family,” the Queen said. “We are so glad to have you.”

Allhan bowed very low. He had no idea what to do, what was protocol. For all his family’s position in the glymera, he wasn’t totally sure how to greet royalty, much less under these circumstances. He must have done something right, though, because the Shadows squeezed his hands at the same time.

“So when’s the mating,” Vishous asked. “Fritz is ready to get planning, or we can do it at the Territory?”

There was a sudden burst of laughter in the room, and Allhan looked at his love. Denne was beaming.

“Whenever she’ll have me,” he said.

“Let’s do it,” she answered as she threw her arms around him. “I’ll mate you anywhere, anytime.”

As they embraced and a round of cheering filled the air with shared joy, he knew there was only one more person they needed to make everything complete for him—and Carmen would have been there if she weren’t asleep from exhaustion in the room next door. He and his sister had spent hours reconnecting, and he was shocked at how easy it was to talk to the female. He had also learned all about the way she’d ended things with Theothore, as the male had been a way out instead of a way forward for her life, something that ultimately would have been unfair for both of them.

She’d also told him that after she’d gotten over the shock of what he’d done to their father, she’d felt a relief from fear that she’d never known before.

But she still had a long way to go to recover from what had been done to her.

He was going to be there to help her. For sure.

As mating plans started swirling around, and the decision was made that there would be two ceremonies, one in the s’Hisbe and one in Caldwell, he and Denne snuck back out into the hall. That massive guard, s’Ex, had gone off somewhere, maybe to eat, finally. So they had a little privacy.

“Those two fallen stars,” Denne murmured. “They were so right.”

“They sure knew what they were doing.” Allhan pulled her in close again and kissed her, lingering on her lips. “I’ll always think of them when I look at the night sky.”

“Me, too.”

The sense that all was right in the world made him feel like they’d reached a destination after long travel, and he released the last of the tension in his body as he exhaled.

But then Denne frowned.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Well, I have a favor to ask you.”

“Anything.”

She chuckled. “Among the things I love about you is how you’re always ready for anything.”

Too right, he thought. And given the way his blood was heating in his veins as he put his hands on her waist, he was on the verge of being very ready for something very specific. Now was hardly the time for that, however.

“What do you need?” he prompted.

“Will you be my plus-one for a wedding?” As his brows popped, Denne put her palms on his pecs. “It’s two friends of mine, and they invited me, and I hate crowds of people, and I know this is a big ask given that it’s humans—”

Allhan cut off the tumble of words by kissing his female again. And after he deepened things by licking his way into her mouth, he had to stop himself.

“I’m your plus-one for life,” he murmured. “Where you go, I go.”

As his female’s eyes swam with tears, he brushed her cheek.

“And I’m the same for you,” she said roughly. “For life.”

When they kissed once more, it was with reverence. Which was what you felt when you’d been granted a miracle.

That had been written in the stars.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With so many thanks to the readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books! This has been a long, marvelous, exciting journey, and I can’t wait to see what happens next in this world we all love. I’d also like to thank Meg Ruley, Rebecca Scherer and everyone at JRA, and Hannah Braaten, Jamie Selzer, Lauren Carr, Sarah Schlick, Fallon McKnight, Carrie Feron, Jennifer Bergstrom, Jennifer Long, and the entire family at Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.

To Team Waud, I love you all. Truly. And as always, everything I do is with love to and adoration for both my family of origin and of adoption.

And with a very special shout-out of gratitude to Morgan McCoy, for so many reasons.

Oh, and thank you to Naamah, my Writer Dog II, and Obie, Writer Dog III, and Jerry, who’s the new man on the block! All of them work as hard as I do on my books!

More from this Series
Darius | The Savior Book 17
The Sinner Book 18 | Lover Unveiled Book 19
Lover Arisen Book 20 | Lassiter Book 21

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. R. WARD is the author of more than sixty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than twenty million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-seven different countries. She lives in the south with her family.

FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/J-R-Ward

SimonandSchuster.com

@GalleryBooks

By J. R. Ward

THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD SERIES

Dark Lover

Lover Eternal

Lover Awakened

Lover Revealed

Lover Unbound

Lover Enshrined

The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider’s Guide

Lover Avenged

Lover Mine

Lover Unleashed

Lover Reborn

Lover at Last

The Shadows

The Beast

The Chosen

The Thief

The Savior

The Sinner

Lover Unveiled

Lover Arisen

Lassiter

Darius

The Beloved

Lover Forbidden

Lover Enthroned

The King

THE BLACK DAGGER LEGACY SERIES

Blood Kiss

Blood Vow

Blood Fury

Blood Truth

THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD: PRISON CAMP

The Jackal

The Wolf

The Viper

THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD WORLD

Dearest Ivie

Prisoner of Night

Where Winter Finds You

A Warm Heart in Winter

A Bloom in Winter

THE LAIR OF THE WOLVEN

Claimed

Forever

Mine

FIREFIGHTERS SERIES

Consumed

NOVELS OF THE FALLEN ANGELS

Covet

Crave

Envy

Rapture

Possession

Immortal

THE BOURBON KINGS

The Bourbon Kings

The Angels’ Share

Devil’s Cut

AS JESSICA WARD

The St. Ambrose School for Girls

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2026935088

ISBN 978-1-6680-7062-8

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